9/11
By Andrea Carrese
With the tenth anniversary approaching of the horrific September attacks to the World Trade center in New York City, New York, I feel compelled to share a vision with you.
It was a clear December evening in the year of 1986 when I strapped my two sons into their car seats and headed north from Brooklyn to Connecticut. My family was expecting me for the holidays. Pregnant with my third son, who, ironically, was born on September 11,1987, I drove north until the traffic halted. This was not unusual; you could count on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway being backed up. I put the car in park marveling, as I always do, at the glimmering Manhattan skyline. To my left the “Twins” loomed, and my eyes flowed with the Hudson, resting first on the South Street Seaport, and finally on The Brooklyn Bridge.
A crackling sound, something you would hear when a radio was out of tune, reverberated, I blinked fixated on the Twin Towers. Sparks, in magnificent color hissed and spewed, heaved and wept. “Oh,” I thought to myself, “the Fourth of July!” Then in a slow deliberate motion the Twins crumbled. It happened so fast I squeezed my eyes shut in disbelief. Upon opening them there, before me, was the perfectly lit, totally intact Manhattan skyline.
I was so shaken by the vision I consulted with my father-in-law, who was at the time a Civil Engineer for the Borough of Brooklyn. We discussed numerous possibilities, one of which was a natural canyon under New York City. I accepted that as a strong possibility, after all there is a “Grid City” under the City!
It was not until February of 2001 when my eldest son expressed to me that he wanted to apply for colleges in New York City that I recalled the vision. We were dining out at “The Windows of the World” and I blurted out “No.”
“Why?” he asked incredulous. Surprised by my response.
“You see these buildings?” I said, “I saw them all fall down,” and then I explained the vision in full detail.
“Oh mom” he retaliated, “you’re so paranoid.”
Later that year, on Sunday, September 9th, I was returning home from the Jersey Shore. My husband had taken the boys to a Jets Game at the Meadowlands earlier and had since arrived home. We had just spoken when I was crossing the Hudson via the Tappan Zee Bridge.
The sun was slipping into the earth, casting a glorious sky that soon would turn dark. The traffic was building; everyone it seemed was leaving Jersey. My daughter slept soundly beside me, along with my two dogs. It was then, while I was inching my way across the span that I started to tremble. Every nerve felt like an unlit spark had been triggered. I was losing all conscious and starting to fidget. I swiped my hand across my slick forehead covered in beads of sweat, even though there was a conflicting gust of cold air streaming from the air conditioner. My heart accelerated; I was frightened. That is when I asked myself “What the hell was happening?” I didn’t know. So I called home.
My husband remained on the phone with me until I was through the toll and had entered Westchester County. “I should have never let you drive alone,” he was saying to me, “especially this time of the year, it ‘s dark already.” Hyperventilating by this point, I assured him that it had nothing to do with me being alone or the now black sky.
Although comforting, he knew, as well as me that I could drive to California without a road map! My dogs sensed it too. Both of them tried to jump from the back to our front seats; it was a task calming us all down.
Two days later I received the awful phone call. My son was attending a “Find the College” seminar when he called. “Mom,” he said, ‘the World Trade is down.”
“You’re not applying to NYU,” I said to him and hung up.
He immediately called back. “Mom,” he said, “your vision, put on f—ing CNN!”
My son would never swear to me. I turned on CNN, and my knees buckled I was so stunned! It was my vision 15 years earlier, except instead of fireworks highlighting the sky it was planes demanding their place on the Twins’.
In retrospect having that vision and recalling it the February of that year was intended. If I was given details could I have stopped such a horrific act? The fright I experienced passing the Tappan Zee Bridge is what we call “collective consciousness.” I was feeling the tension as the terrorists who orchestrated this hideous crime schemed. If it was clear enough for me to “see” the actual act, could I have stopped it? I struggle with that.
Two years later we met with dear friends in Manhattan for the weekend. After of full day of browsing, I decided to rest before a full evening of activities. On the 14th floor of a prominent New York Hotel, which overlooked St. Patrick’s Cathedral I tucked myself onto a window seat and slipped into half sleep fugue state. Voices crowded my consciousness; I heard intimate conversations, as well as large groups of people conversing, every dialect, every race filled the empty spaces in my mind. While tucked in the way back was the big question, could 9/11 happen again? Are we safe?
As quickly as those thoughts sliced into my peaceful state of mind, just as quickly they dispersed… New Yorkers are strong– brimming with promise and faith, optimism overpowers pessimism, love over hate. They are privileged, and they know it. They carry on happily, as they always will, shaping Manhattan into the magnificent city that it is.
