From my Bedroom Window, photo by smalltowngirl

In the Midwest, we see 9/11 as a large scale event. We’re compassionate, but we still it through the lens that the news crews shared it; not from the eyes of someone living in the community directly affected. Living in New York changed that for me. My friends would occassionally remember that day quietly and in detail.

Walking through Park Slope with my friend Michael, he refleced out loud about where he and his girlfriend each were that day. He told me that they’d not lived in New York City for very long, and that for all the fear they both felt, living through 9/11 is also one of the things that made them feel like New York City was their city and Park Slope was their community. They sat on a rooftop in Brooklyn, watching the Manhattan skyline burn. I watched it all on television.

Separately, another friend described the dust-covered Brooklyn streets. Like a light snow, he said, all of the neighborhood’s cars, streets, and buildings were covered in grey ash and dust.

I didn’t live in New York City in 2001, but I’ve felt the absense of steel and breath and life at Ground Zero. It’s a place were people commuted to work just like the rest of us commute to our own offices or schools or job sites. At one time, Ground Zero was an office not unlike yours or mine to the people who worked inside of it.

New York City is a city of greatness. Its power and achievement are unrivaled by any other city in the United States, but New York City is also a city made up of real, normal people.

No matter how significant keywords like “national security” or “terrorism” or “patriotism” are, 9/11 is about individual people going about their daily work; heading to the office, dropping the kids off at school, or sipping their morning coffee.

In the Midwest we say “Never Forget”, and we remind ourselves once a year that today is the eleventh of September. Many of the individual people who I hold close to my heart experience 9/11 in unexpected flashbacks and daily reminders of what happened in their community.

To my friends here in the Midwest, I hope that you’ll continue to show respect for the individuals and their families who lived through 9/11 in New York City. 9/11 is not a symbol to them of one specific day in history; it’s a lens through which many of my friends now see their daily lives. We say “never forget”, but after living in New York City, I wonder how you ever can.