Posted on 09/09/2006 1:21:26 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
I was next to the World Trade Center when it fell, and for the past five years, people have regularly asked me, "How has it changed your life?"
This month, for the first time, I can say, "I moved to Madison."
I was at the corner of Liberty and Broadway when the first tower fell.
I was too close to the building to be able to see what was happening. It sounded like a huge bomb, and it felt like a snowstorm of dirt.
Everyone ran, but I took only five strides before I could no longer see or run. I crawled over piles of people. But in just a few seconds, the world became dead silent.
No one could talk because our mouths were full of dust.
I could barely breathe.
I had no idea where I was or how to preserve myself.
I thought I might be the only person alive.
When breathing got very difficult, I found myself making peace with death.
Then time nearly stopped so that I had an hour's worth of thoughts in seconds.
I kept looking for air, but I moved more slowly, pretty sure I would never find it.
I worried about my brothers, who were still teenagers. I worried about how sad they would be. And I worried that my parents would be sad.
But after that what I really felt was enormous disappointment that I would not get to be with a husband, who I had just married. I realized, at that moment, that what I was really looking forward to in life was just being with my family and seeing what it was like to be married. I wanted to watch life unfold.
I heard a window break near me, and I moved toward it. The window was above my head, and I could see light inside the building.
With strength I could never duplicate, I pulled myself up, off the street, out of the rubble, through the window. The building had clear air. I found a bathroom and went inside looking for water. There were men fighting over the faucets and men drinking out of the toilets. I drank out of a toilet, and then I started thinking about staying alive.
The path from toilet water back to my office near the World Trade Center was long. Three weeks, actually. I was so disoriented that it took me three days just to understand that both towers fell. When I understood what had happened, the disorientation didn't end, though, it just shifted. I felt like I didn't belong in my life.
There were so many things I thought I had been looking forward to, but the minute I thought I was going to die, what I was sad about was not anything on my high-powered to-do list. I was sad about not getting to grow old with my family: I just wanted everything to slow down so I could watch our lives happen.
It's surprising because like almost all New Yorkers, I was not the slow down type. And in case it's not clear from the obituaries and essays that have come from 9/11, the World Trade Center area attracted people from the very, very fast lane.
Like many New Yorkers, I went to a World Trade Center recovery group. The groups were divided into the kind of trauma you experienced. People who watched the scene on TV were not in the same group as people whose spouse died.
I was in a group with people who were there the 10 minutes or so before the first tower fell. Some of the people in my group felt the impact of the plane while sitting at their desk. Some of the people ran from their building and were splattered by body parts from jumpers. All of us felt lucky to be alive.
All of us vowed to make life more meaningful after 9/11. Almost all of us changed jobs to do something that gave us more personal time. The few of us who could, had a baby.
Now I know that if I die tomorrow, what I'll regret is not getting to watch my life unfold. So I make sure to appreciate the unfolding of each day. I made a career change from Wall Street-based business development to home-based writer, I had two kids, and I encouraged my husband to reject jobs with long hours. We vowed to cut back our spending 70 percent to create a more simple life.
Right after 9/11, New Yorkers received mail from people all over the country asking what they could do to help. And in the last five years since 9/11, the country has changed a lot.
Madison, through all this, remained a lovely, affordable, community-based town with respect for culture and diversity - a haven for a New Yorker looking for a way to slow down and thank God for being alive.
Recently, as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches, people ask again, how 9/11 changed my life. I have been saying, "I moved to Madison, Wisconsin," but it turns out that most people know Madison. They know it's in Wisconsin.
They say, "Oh, I've heard great things about it."
So have I. And I feel lucky to be here.
They'll have to cut back spending 70%.
They'll need that money to pay Wisconsin's taxes.
So, an aging hippie moved to the Ithaca of the midwest and they expect us to think its something profound. My eyes are rolling so hard I have a headache.
So, an aging hippie moved to the Ithaca of the midwest and they expect us to think its something profound. My eyes are rolling so hard I have a headache.
Madison, Ann Arbor, Berzerkely, all dominated by communists. Can't help but wonder why anyone would move there unless they were one.
Penelope Trunk appears to be a professional 9/11 victim.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174615,00.html
Cha-ching!!!
Madison has changed a good deal since my grandfather moved there from the "old country" in the late 1800's. Raised 12 children and made his living cutting ice out of Lake Mendota. I used to visit there frequently with my father to see my uncle who lived there until his death about 15 years ago. But the taxes are indeed ridiculous.
What an utter waste of time. There is no value to this piece whatsoever, other than to the writer herself, as she gets to suck-up to the staff at her hometown paper. As soon as she comes out of the closet the cycle will be complete, and she'll get her credentials.
Good Post! Good story by a person who was there when it was happening.
Now I know that if I die tomorrow, what I'll regret is not getting to watch my life unfold. So I make sure to appreciate the unfolding of each day. I made a career change from Wall Street-based business development to home-based writer, I had two kids, and I encouraged my husband to reject jobs with long hours. We vowed to cut back our spending 70 percent to create a more simple life.
Hmmmmm I seem to smell a PR job. 2 Kids and a new husband after losing one Husband in the Twin Towers? Pretty fast work for only 5 years.
isn't she one of the jersey girls?
Read it again.
the author of the forthcoming book: "You Don't Need a Ladder to Get to the Top: New Rules for Success" (Warner).
Hmmm, Madison WI, the Commie HQ of the midwest ... some people never learn.
..."respects culture and diversity.". We have a pinko!
i'm not saying she gets a free pass. i just don't want to be like the close minded liberal, who cannot accept anything anyone outside his realm says.
There's a difference between being a victim, and telling about a life-changing experience. WHAT IS WRONG with this article?
Madison is nothing compared to Ann Arbor. She merely moved to Madison because she couldn't afford Ann Arbor.
Anyone with a comic sense of the absurd cannot make it past the first two sentences without laughing.
I was next to the World Trade Center when it fell, and for the past five years, people have regularly asked me, "How has it changed your life?"This month, for the first time, I can say, "I moved to Madison."
Does she still drink out of toilets in Wisconsin?
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