Everyone says that September 11th, 2001, started out as a beautiful autumn day in New York City.  And it’s true.  I was in my apartment on 71st and 2nd when the first plane hit the twin towers.  My first child, Zachary, was six months old.  The TV was on.  We were getting ready for our morning walk in Central Park when the TV anchor, I think it might have been Matt Lauer or Katie Couric, said something about a small single engine plane having just hit the World Trade Center.

I watched for a moment, probably while throwing some supplies in the stroller for our walk — diapers, a blanket, some water.  My attention was divided (a mother’s attention is so often divided) as I buckled Zachary in, took one last look at the TV, surprised at the plane, but not comprehending what had happened.  The sad thing is, I’ve been around in NYC when planes and helicopters had crashed before.  Bad news no longer startled.

I flicked off the TV and we left the apartment, strolling west down 71st street, towards the park.  A mother I knew vaguely passed me on the sidewalk, also with a stroller and also with her child.  Our conversation was brief — something about the beautiful weather.

After a lovely walk in the park, and some sitting on the  park bench, I headed back home.  By then, everything had changed.  I could tell as I walked home that things were different.  Snippets of conversation overheard were about the World Trade Center collapsing, and already the streets seemed fuller and busier and faster, people trying to get somewhere — somewhere safe, to be with someone they loved.

By the time I got home, I had received a couple of phone calls and I knew.  But I still didn’t get it.  I turned the TV back on in the apartment and the magnitude of the disaster exposed itself.

The world seemed to be ending, almost.

My husband called from his office (he was supposed to be in those towers that morning, but the day before, his meeting there had been cancelled) and told me to go the grocery store and stock up.  He also let me know that he would be bringing guests home — friends who lived outside of the city and who were unable to return home because of the transit issues.  He had watched the towers crumble from a street corner on Fifth Avenue.

In the grocery store I navigated the aisles with Zachary in the stroller.  The store was packed.  Staples like water were quickly depleted.  There was the feeling — are we under siege?

I threw random things in my basket, without a real plan.  I bought lots of meat, which I don’t even eat, I’m vegetarian — I wasn’t thinking very clearly.  For some reason meat seemed just the thing:  grounding, hardy.  At the check out line, which was already deep, I listened to the lady in front of me give emergency planning advice “I lived in California,” she said “I know what to buy:  peanut butter.  Buy peanut butter.”

I was immediately dismayed — I had not bought any peanut butter and so much of what I had chosen was perishable — why was I getting all this meat?  What if the electricity failed?  Was this some sort of attack?  War?  Would bombs be dropping through the night?

But I had a place in line and the store was packed and my son I knew would cry soon (nap time), so I stayed put.  Frozen.

When we got home, I put away the groceries and set about making a meat spaghetti sauce for our arriving guests.  I made a lot of it, because I feared the electricity would fail and I would be stuck with rotting beef.

We lived on the ground floor, facing onto 2nd avenue, a front row seat.  Outside the window crowds and crowds of people passed, like there was some sort of parade going on.  Because the world had changed, everybody seemed to have left work; and because the subways had stopped, everyone had taken to the streets.

My son went down for his nap.  I turned the TV on and watched the news channels, the volume turned down low so I wouldn’t wake my baby.

I knew the World Trade Center.  There had been a time, before I married, that I had spent many a laughing night at the bar Windows on the World at the tippy top of it.  That was a beautiful place to experience the city.  The view was breathtaking.  I loved going there.  Some of those nights, a glass of wine (actually, it was probably something more forceful back then — a whiskey sour perhaps), the twinkling lights of the city, some good friends — I really did have the feeling that I was on top of the world.

I also knew the World Trade Center because they sold half price tickets there for Broadway shows.  Sometimes I would head down there during lunch and stand in line to buy a couple of tickets to something fun.

My husband came home with guests and we started thinking about the people we knew who worked at the Twin Towers.  We all knew several.

Later my girlfriend who worked there told the story of how she got out — they had been told to evacuate, so she and her boss headed downstairs.  Halfway down the evacuation was called off, but they already had decided on getting a cup of coffee, so they ignored the reversal.  But when they finally got downstairs, they immediately knew that all was not well.  She stepped out on the street and said that for a moment she thought a butcher truck must have crashed — all the chunks of red meat.  But it wasn’t that.  It was parts of bodies.

They stepped away from the towers, and at some point, one of them started to crumble.  She and her boss started to run, for their lives.  They were holding hands for a moment, running together, but their hands separated and he took off, leaving her far behind.  She said that he was never able to look her in the eye after that.  My friend was pregnant and she miscarried soon after that day.

We ate our spaghetti dinner that night (I didn’t eat the sauce), grateful to be alive, but apprehensive about the future.  We had wine with dinner (we probably wished for whiskey).  That night we stayed up late talking.

A couple of days later all was not back to normal.  Nights were the worst.  For weeks, all night long trucks rumbled past our windows, bound for Ground Zero, to collect rubble and carry it out of the city.  Days were a little better, but still they remained focussed on disaster.

I bought water and flashlights and batteries.  I bought peanut butter.  I resisted at first, but eventually I did buy duct tape and plastic, as advised by emergency management.  The idea was that in case of a chemical attack, you could seal off the apartment.

But eventually the urgency of impending disaster wore off. The feeling of fear persisted, but it started to feel normal.

By the time I left NY in 2005, for the sunny hills of Austin, TX, I wasn’t scared any longer.  I loved the city too much to be afraid of it.  But that day in September, and the sorrow of it, still stays with me.