Today on 9/11 I'm sitting on the 32nd floor of the Freedom Tower in Lower Manahattan. 16 years ago, I was across the river watching the destruction.
I remember, and it's been a very difficult day.
I spent a long time that day, before the towers fell, watching the smoke drift almost peacefully into the sky from holes in the New York City Skyline. Later when the ash of those three destroyed buildings drifted over my coastal NJ town, looking more like snow than pulverized dust, I knew that the country and world I had perceived up until then was irrevocably gone. In its place was sheer terror, fear, confusion and manipulation.
How did you come to work in the Freedom Tower?!?
Since coming to work here 10 months ago, I've fielded this question a lot. The truth is I thought that the company was located in Mid-town (the sign was still up and everything). It wasn't until I was invited in for an interview that I confirmed the address at 46th only to learn that they had moved to the Freedom Tower some time before that.
In my ongoing effort to always let fear push me forward, not backward, I decided to take the interview. I hadn't been to Lower Manhattan since before 9/11/01. I was much less nervous about the interview than I was about coming into the building at all.
You see, I spent a long time on 9/11 after 9/11. I entered the military shortly after 9/11, but not solely because of that event. I had entertained military service previously but that day solidified my decision to jump into the machine to see what I could, for myself.
Strange Day
Remember Building 7
I never imagined that after 9/11 I would join the Navy, travel the oceans to more than a dozen countries, visit five continents, relocate to California and one day find myself not only back in New York City but sitting on the 32nd floor of the Tower that 9/11 built, on 9/11 no less. Life has a way of bringing you full circle, I suppose.
But I can say that my entire experience working in this tower has been surreal. For the first few months each morning I'd walk through the office and couldn't help but stay keenly aware of the skies beyond the large window panes lining the outer walls.
Just as that sensation subsided they announced that our team would be moving from the 23rd to 32nd floor. This did nothing for my unease except to increase the amount I was experiencing. I tried to mitigate that anxiety by doing a simple fire-drill walkthrough myself, so I could better understand the way out of the building through the lower levels... should it ever become necessary. It's a Navy thing.
Unfortunately, I got completely lost in that maze. I took long hallways to stairs that seemed to lead to nowhere I could exit. Eventually, some cameras saw me wandering around and sent someone to help guide me out of there. It's important to note that I never did learn how to gain egress from those sub-levels.
Going upward wasn't much better, and only served to ratchet up the intensity of what I experience in this building. And it's a shame, because it's a beautiful sky lounge with a variety of game rooms, lounging areas and a cafe.
I've been up there exactly twice, and that was one too many times. Though it was worth it if only to show the traveling Steemit Gnome, and my Steemit fam, what the view was like :)
In fact, I'd have to say that hosting the Steemit Gnome was the most fun I've had around the Freedom Tower since coming to work in the area.
16 Years on
It's been 16 years since I sat on the banks of the Hudson River, in the shadow of a wounded New York City Skyline that was about to change forever.
And the skyline did change forever, as did the city, country and world.
But it took several years until I understood that I had not been spared the paradigm shift; that I had been changed too.
That change is still happening, to a degree. It pushed me into and out of the military, into and out of research, into and out of perspectives as more information became available (or not, as has been the case here).
16 years on it is hard to believe that I'm sitting 32 stories up in the Tower that 9/11 built to replace the three that were lost.
