I still remember that early morning as if it were yesterday.
The phone rang at around 6:00 am PDT or so, just after United flight 175 hit the second tower. It was our friend Denise, who was in the Ethos Quartet with us, who was calling. She left a voice mail which simply said “Turn on the tv, something’s happening”. Around 7:00 am, my clock radio alarm went off. NPR was my station of choice. I heard some mention of a catastrophe in New York City. I listened to my friend’s voice mail, then went in and turned on the tv. The second tower had collapsed moments before. Seeing the huge, incredibly huge, plume of smoke and dust over lower Manhattan, I was sure that an extremely powerful bomb had gone off in the city. I remember my knees giving way, just falling to a seat on the sofa, as I saw the unspeakable, the horrific, the unimaginable – right there before me. I gathered myself and ran into the bedroom to wake my wife. The horrible day had begun.
I think of that day often, especially in the first part of September, before the anniversary arrives. The days in Portland are so bright, clear, and perfect. Just like in NYC that fateful day. As my friend, the composer Daniel Ott said in his Facebook post this morning:
This isn’t really a 9/11 post. It’s an every day post: for many of us who lived in New York on that day, certain things will never be the same. I’m not alone when I step outside at a certain time of year, with the light just so, and the sky clear as can be, and not think of that day. Nor can I walk along the West Side, look upwards to see a plane coursing south over the Hudson, routine as can be, and not remember. Not even a glance at the distant skyline comes without these feelings as an unbidden accompaniment….
I remember the Oregon Symphony had a runout concert in Salem that night. James DePreist was adamant that the concert go on as scheduled. He thought it would provide solace for people. We played the elegiac Nimrod variation from Elgar’s Enigma Variations that night as a prelude to the concert. It was one of the most heart-wrenching moments of performing that I’ve ever experienced.
Never forget.
One reply on “september 11th – 13 years later”
I, too remember as I was here for my son’s wedding and was ar the airport to fly home to KC as we were not living here then. I still have the program played by the symphony on the following Friday when James Depriest ask that there be no applause until the end when they played America and we would applaud for our country