Remembrance.

I was struggling with trying to piece together our last day in New York activities with the last game of the World Series, but H suggested I make this its own post. I felt as though I may be diminishing these events by following it up with a celebratory yeehaw, so I've split up the two experiences.

We stopped for an early lunch at The Halal Guys cart to grab some gyros. We hadn't tried gyros before, but it'd be safe to say we are complete converts now. I got to the bottom of my gyro-filled naan wrap and had to make a very difficult decision - stuffed as I was, should I toss out the remaining ten bites of my lunch, or eat just munch on the inner layer of naan where the piping hot gyro meat had essentially seared the dough making it a crispy, crunchy delight? Come on, now. H gave me a sideways glance not unlike the face he makes when I lick the remaining crumbs off a dessert plate at home. We chunked the last food bits in a nearby trash can and triangulated the location of the nearest subway entrance two blocks over.

I've never been on a subway - I haven't lived in a city that's offered them (I don't think DART counts as a subway, just a railway system) - so this was an experience in itself for me. H negotiated with the older gentleman seated in the glass booth for a card with enough money for two roundtrip tickets. THe card was sort of like a super bendy library card with a swipe stripe. I think I still have ours somewhere in my suitcase, actually. We made our way down the thin steps to the station and waited for a while before realizing we probably just missed the train. The air was warm despite the cold aboveground, and it felt like I was breathing the same breath from a million people. I saw some benches a few feet down from us, and we started to walk over until we noticed a couple of guys were already seated on them and didn't look like they would be moving anytime soon. The train pulled up in no time, though, and we hopped on and easily found seats together.

At some point, H said there was no way I would be able to sleep on the train, what with all the stops and mechanical noise and all the people. Challenge accepted. I pulled my coat hood up and leaned my head on his shoulder. I was just at the point where recollection ends and unconsciousness begins when the train came to a stop and I unwittingly slid an entire foot away from his shoulder. I guess the person that was sitting to my left had gotten up because this was her stop, which allowed me to travel a respectable length of the bench as the train decelerated. H laughed at me, but I felt as though I'd proven my abilities. A few stops later and we had arrived at our destination.

One of the places I hoped we would visit on this trip was the World Trade Center Memorial. I wonder if that's an odd thing to admit - yes, I wanted to see Central Park, and I liked the feeling of being taller than NYC, but I really wanted to travel to the place where thousands had lost their lives. I suppose it's similar to wanting to visit Auschwitz (but obviously on a much smaller scale) - something about the incredible backwards thinking that led thousands or millions of innocent people to their deaths. A need to understand how the events unfolded as an attempt to understand why it happened. And I suppose for me, I needed to see it with my own eyes.

Walking up to the memorial you first notice the fountain, the loud sound of water rushing over stone both eerie and soothing. Droplets mist the names engraved around the perimeter of the structure. Oak trees were chosen for their varying leaf colors and were transplanted at varying  ages, so that as they grow none are identical.

To the left of the fountain is the entrance to the underground memorial. A long staircase leads to a hallway with photographs and audio on loop of witnesses relaying their first thoughts when they heard or saw the plane hit the tower. As we walked past these accounts I remember feeling like it was harder to breathe, as though I was moving through air thick with emotion and sadness and the premonition of what would happen.

Past the hallway was an overlook onto the ground floor of the structure.

The original concrete-embedded cable mounts for the World Trade Center. 

Taken from Ground Zero. Notes for loved ones, missing person pictures,
and a bouquet covered in dust that has since dried up. 

The antenna from the top of the World Trade Center, circled in the picture. 

While the larger objects in the memorial allow photography, much of the inner enclosed portion did not. Whether that is out of respect for families or for other reasons, I'm not sure, but I'm glad that they don't allow it. There was enough silently shocking material inside that taking photos of it would just be a distraction to everyone else inside.

In the center of each room would be artifacts from the morning, and timelines were posted along the walls with minute-to-minute events as they took place. Underneath the timelines were phones for visitors to listen to pieces of audio, including transmissions from the aircraft to towers, and phone calls from passengers to their loved ones. On the timeline would be the transcript of the message, and that alone was almost too much for me to handle. I couldn't listen to the audio. There were so many items left behind, so many items found by first responders, so much hope that a person would be alive just underneath this next piece of rubble. You feel heavy with the weight of all those lives. Somewhere in the timeline was the fact that this was the largest number of people successfully evacuated in the history of America.

There are many pieces of the memorial that stay with me. One of the final videos was taken by astronaut Frank Culbertson on the International Space Station. Underneath the video a sign tells us that his friend was the pilot on the flight that hit the Pentagon. There was a bike rack that had been preserved, dust and all, taken from a street marked with spray paint to "Save This". In the public part of the memorial, this wall created by an artist to resemble how blue the sky was in the hours before the attacks.

And after we had seen what we came to see, we take the escalator up to the hallway where the day began. We walk up the straight staircase bringing us back to ground level, and with every step I feel lighter somehow, as though I can breathe a little easier. We walk past the fountain, and this time it seems less frightening.

We hop on the subway taking us back to the hotel. We didn't talk to each other, we were still taking it all in, remembering the feeling. We stop on a stone bench on our way, just for a moment, because we have the time. I look up, and the sky is so intensely blue.