On the radio a writer asked me, “Do you remember the first anniversary of September 11th?” No, I thought. I was 8 and it was the first week of third grade. I only remember the missing fliers that still hung, tattered by a year’s worth of weather around the lampposts in my neighborhood. The empty firehouse resembled a wounded lion, still majestic and powerful but legless with a hole in its side. The writer continued to address me, “Don’t you remember the wind that howled through the city that day, whistling between the buildings like so many souls wanting to be remembered?” My uncle recalled this suddenly, “Yes, yes,” he exclaimed, “I walked out of the door and suddenly there was a gust of wind that nearly blew me off my feet.” I could picture the empire state building swaying as it greeted its long lost friends. The trees in Battery park must have swayed as the winds swirled through and the ash that still clung to our city must have lifted, if only for a moment, as its resting ground was disturbed. The wind of spirits must have flown to Brooklyn to visit the dead who walked about, going to work, shrinks, and school. Whitecaps must have lined the East River and small breakers would have slapped soda bottles and beer cans against the rocks.

I felt the wind as we drove along the Jackie Robinson through the cemetery that seems to last for miles. When I was little I used to try to hold my breath when I passed it for fear of allowing all the lonely spirits to enter my lungs. Ultimately though, I would have to take a gulp of air and then perform some ritual to expel the ghosts. The radio was now playing Mozart’s requiem to me and so I turned my head towards the painfully crisp headstones and wept. The director of my scene wanted to induce more crying so he added in a prop that I would only catch glimpses of. The Manhattan skyline appeared over the layers of Earth that stood before me, over the graveyard, the dilapidated trees beaten down by tornadoes and hurricanes. The Chrysler Building seemed to rise as we turned a corner and fell back again on the straightaway. The buildings were silhouetted by the sun and clouds and appeared as charcoal coloured stencils, still majestic but legless and with a giant erasure towards the southern tip. I applauded the director of that scene, awarding him with an Oscar.

I remember the first time that I opened our box of memorabilia if that’s what you call it although that seems more like “Mind the Gap” underwear from Heathrow Airport, a sweatshirt from Nantucket or a piece of maple candy from Maine. The newspaper from September 12th had stood up to 10 years well, yellowing only slightly and maintaining its well defined edges. I saw a GI Joe figure dropping from the perfect day, from what many have called the, “impossibly blue sky.” Its limbs were outstretched clinging to the air like a rope. Something beneath it was frozen an inch above the ground, paused for eternity on the newsprint above its death. I read through that New York Times, and the one from the next day and the next. Each day, the issue apologized for unrelated and frivolous articles that they had already sent to print before Tuesday. Each day a new list of the dead and missing was compiled in categories: North Tower, South Tower, United 93, American 11, United 175, American 77, firefighters, police officers, volunteers and the Pentagon. I realized how much I was unaware of in music class that Tuesday, how much the world died while I went on living.

I don’t wish to dwell on this topic every year when September rolls around. I realize that I have written two previous New Amsterdam articles for this newspaper on 9/11, but I am not trying to write sappy, irrelevant prose to commemorate the anniversary each year to people who would rather move on. I truly believe that every student changed ten years ago, some much more than others. Yet however much or little you lost, September 11th lives a little bit inside all of us, even if it only peaks its head out around this time of year. The world in which we live is a product of it and thus we must address the issue. It may seem redundant to focus on it each year for one article, but my perspective has changed dramatically since last year. Each number we add to the anniversary makes it seem that much more surreal and oddly enough that much closer. I don’t know who said it, but someone suggested that one should read Don Quixote three times, once when they are a small child, a second time as a grownup and finally as an old man or woman. The lesson is simple but the application is more difficult than it would seem. I would like to do this when trying to understand 9/11. We all lived through it as children and understood perhaps that the world was not as black and white as we once thought. Now we are contemplating it as young adults, as the world’s future, attempting to discover what this means for society and politics. Soon we will remember 9/11 as adults and will have to explain it to our children who will only remember the Manhattan skyline with one giant building towering over the others. And then in sixty-five or so years, not to rush it or anything, we will be the elders that everyone else turns to, the ones who remember the world back in the old days. We will be the only one’s left to remember. We will recall what we felt all those years ago in second grade, first grade, kindergarten, and now nursery school because it was that morning not the first week of Year 1 seminar, when we first learned of the human condition.