Remembering A Tragedy: 9/11

I remember vividly where I was on this day nine years ago.  I don't remember what I was doing before the second tower was hit at 9:03 AM.  I don't remember a great deal about what I did after, but I remember where I was. 

I was in twelfth grade.  School had only just begun.  I was seventeen years old. When the first plane hit I was probably flirting with a boy in the halls of my high school.  When the second plane hit I was in Mrs. Hewes Theatre Arts X class (or some such imaginary number she made up so those of us who took a million theatre arts courses could continue enrolling and learning from her) .  This was a course that was usually rowdy and loud.  We were obnoxious until we got started.  But when I walked in that day I remember how quiet it was.

We sat in a circle so we could see each other.  The circle wasn't there.  The entire class was gathered in ugly plastic chairs staring in silence at the television on the right-hand side of the large classroom.  I pulled up an empty chair.  "What's going on?" I whispered.

Zane shook his green-haired head.  "No one knows.  Just watch." He whispered back.  And then the second plane flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.  It just flew right into the side of the building.  No one said anything.  We knew we were watching a tragedy unfold, watching our own tragedy unfold.

I remember the shock and the sadness that filled the room.  I remember the reporters ducking instinctively as the south tower fell.  This huge skyskraper tumbled to the ground like so much dust in a matter of seconds.  And that's when we reached out to one another.  We were crying and holding hands.  People were dying and we knew it.  So we sat and we cried and we held hands and we grieved for those people and for ourselves and for our country. And nothing was ever the same again. 

Where were you?