This time seven years ago, I was on the train to work. I was on the 1 train getting off at 50th Street, annoyed and tired - my usual response to working sometimes. There was a female cop on my right hand side as I battled through the massive crowd that tried to converge into an almost single file line up the stairs to Broadway. Her walkie talkie was screaming load something that sounded distressful. I do remember that. I also remember, being an adopted New Yorker, that I quickly stopped listening and went on about my morning. I thought about grabbing my favorite breakfast sandwich from the almost Subway place across 50th - turkey, egg and cheese on an english muffin - but I decided to drop my stuff off first. My boss, Robby Sussman, was in his office watching a plane go through the World Trade Center.
“Look at this, T. Tara,” he said, both of us unsure of what we were watching. He had the nervous grin on his face. I think I did too. We thought we were watching something not real.
Eventually we all figured out it was real. The rest of my department came in - Brenda, Mark, Stuart and Bobby. Robby decided we should all get a closer look so we left and kept walking, wondering outloud, muttering, watching people look up in the sky, confused. I had no money on me and I was STARVING. At some point I reached into my bag and found an abandoned Zone bar (my nutrionist taught me well) because I felt faint. In my mind, we’d find out it was some Orson Welles hoax and we’d laugh about it later. Some Hollywood type decided it would be funny to show how vulnerable we were and we’d all feel pissed but jovial later. That’s what I thought. We made our way over to the west side and soon we were in front of the Javitz Center. Robby, more of a kid than a leader, thought we could a better look over there. Then it hit us like a ton of breaks. A few sentences from a cop shook us back to where we needed to be.

“What the hell are you doing over here? That building is GLASS and a plane just went through the World Trade Center! Get out of here!”

Plane. Glass. Building. People. We ran.

We ran back to the office, quietly. Scared. Even the MTV crowd - usually cemented to 1515 Broadway in hopes of becoming discovered - had vanished. By the time we reached our floor people were wandering around looking at each other trying to figure out what to do. We had no plan for this. There was no alarm that told us to walk out down the stairs single file. The executives rapidly tried to put something together - “hotel rooms for those who can’t get home?” or “how should we get home?” There were no trains for obvious reasons. Slowly some of us figured we had to go it alone. I went to my desk to try and call my parents. I couldn’t get through. I tried using my cellphone and it sounded the same - broken. My desk phone rang and it was my best friend from childhood, Kerry, crying. Asking if I was alright. Nobody back home in Detroit knew where the World Trade Center was in relation to my office. I started to cry when I heard her cry. I said I was alright. I said I’d call later. I called my mom, who was crying too, finally able to get through. I told her I was fine and I’d call later. I didn’t feel like I could really breakdown until I talked to my dad. My dad who could save me from anything. He comforted me. Told me to be safe. To watch for things. To try and call later. To get home. Home was approximately 75 blocks from where I was. There were no buses, no trains. I tried to call Marcella but couldn’t get through. She and I would revisit this scenario a year later during the brown out of that summer but it would be different then - then we would choose not to think of danger, but decide to walk up together, grab some wine coolers, clown people climbing on the back of buses, part ways and suffer in the heat with no electricity.

But back to this day. Jen decided to stay at the office with a group of people and I knew that was not my bag so I left with Mark who lived uptown as well. I don’t remember what we talked about since we didn’t have much in common - he was older than me, Jewish, about to get married, going with the script of his life he thought he should follow. I don’t even remember who I was dating then but I know there was nobody close enough who called to check on me. It may have been the Raisin I was dating in which case it would make sense that he wouldn’t call and check on me as he was not much of a calller or a checker-on-me type anyway. Mark and I followed a group of people uptown like zombies. We took Broadway, then took Central Park West, thinking the park would be safe since there werent that many buildings around. Somehow we merged on to Columbus because Mark was pointing out places that would be good to eat at some point. I remember that my flip flop was broken and it annoyed me. I had to change how I walked. I was mad at myself for wearing them but I had no idea this would be that kind of day where I’d need to walk this long - but sometimes I would need to walk anyway in New York - to clear my head, to soak in the city, to watch things happen around me. Mark and I parted ways when we got to the 90s. That’s where he lived. I kept going, starving. Me and a slowly tapering off group of people. I knew that the Jersey crew were making their way to the George Washington Bridge - that some were trying to find cabs to share. I was reminded of the movie “The Wiz” where Dorothy and crew keep trying to take the cabs that pull off as soon as they get close. In the end they finally keep walking past the cabs, deciding to just rely on themselves. That’s what I felt like. The only place open to eat was a pizza place on 110th and Amsterdam. It was gross. There was a line. I left. I got to Lenox and grabbed some salad and some Jamaican patties from a rastafarian hole in the wall that nobody but neighborhood people would know about. In a daze, I thought it would be good to have some for later so I bought more than I could eat then. I finally got home, still unable to call anyone.
I sat on my couch, alone. Turned on CNN. And there I stayed for a few days. Just like that. On the couch. Watching CNN. I looked out my window and thought about how many people we were breathing in as the dust made its way uptown. Morbid but true. At night, scared and alone, I’d feel my eyes sag down my cheeks. I wouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Not for more than thirty minutes at a time. I’m not sure how I figured out we could go back to work or when I did but the weeks and months to follow were agonizing. We all slowly made our way back into the world - sharing crazy stories like Maritri having just taken the last Path train from the World Trade Center to Jersey before the plane hit. I had some Sundance Channel coworkers who were married to Wall Street men. They spent that fall going to funerals. We organized provisions for those at Ground Zero searching for people - socks, toothpaste, underwear, bandaids. I took up a collection at work, went to Rite Aid and bought whatever sounded good, dropping the bags off at the fire station on 8th Ave. What was to follow wouldn’t ever be the same. I had fits of crying, insomnia, agitation. i didn’t know anybody personally who died but I felt close to a fire and singed. I stopped talking to some people that I couldn’t tolerate. My own dramatic Gypsy Rose Lee cousin who liked to call me in the middle of the night was cut off. She called to ask me what she should do about some prince in another country who wanted to marry her but his family didn’t want him to. I told her that I was tired. My life had changed. I was nine elevened and this really wasn’t a good time. But she was suffering she said, or something like that. I told her there were dead people waiting in my city or something like that. I hung up. There was a blue tint in my bedroom from the moon. I lay awake looking at the moon.