A majority of people in the US are considering quitting their jobs right now according to the New York Times. This is obvious to me because in the months after the towers fell, my world was my recovery support groups — and in my groups, the conversations were all about who is going back to work. Read more
I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. Each year I write a post on 9/11. Here is the archive. Here is my post for today:
When Nino came back to live with us he came back in stages. We had been spending a few weekends together for a long time, but we hadn’t lived together in twelve years.
At dinnertime, we talk about when CD-ROMs were invented and there was no content to put on them. The kids ask us to tell the how-we-met story again. Read more
Have you heard the term zoomers? It’s what Generation Z calls themselves. I remember resisting using the term millennial because I thought it was absurdly self-aggrandizing. But now I see that the moniker is perfectly aligned to Millennial thinking.
I have been writing a post about 9/11 every year. Maybe because 9/11 comes right around the Jewish High Holidays, I treat my archive of posts a little like a prayer book. I read my favorite – the first one – because it’s still incredible to me that I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. Read more
After the World Trade Center fell, those of us who were there were divided into therapy groups. Sorted by trauma. People who lost a parent in one group. People who escaped down a stairwell in another group. I was in the group of people who got hit by flying body parts. Read more
In case you don’t know, I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. Here is the piece I wrote for Time magazine on that day.
Here is an archive of the posts I’ve written every year on 9/11.
Here are my two biggest problems today: Read more
Every year I write about 9/11. Because I was there. But this year, I didn’t want to. But then I woke up today and decided that I want to. Read more
I was there, at the base of the first tower when it fell. That night I wrote a piece for Time magazine to make sense of what happened. And each year on 9/11 I write again. This year I was thinking that I’ve been back to New York City so often with my kids that maybe my 9/11 phase of life has passed…
But then I decided to tell you a story. Read more
People are still finding debris from the World Trade Center attacks. Tucked into crevices, between building where you don’t expect it. This is what I feel like is happening in my body as well when someone brings up a topic that makes me think of my day at the World Trade Center all over again.
Recently, it was the discussion of how it’s a messed up life to work on your phone all day. Why are so many people saying they need to be an unplugged as parent? I think those people are desperate and misguided; being tethered to my phone gives me freedom to make decisions completely consistent with my values.
A way I test this hypothesis is go back to the moment on 9/11 when I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. I remember every minute of what happened from when the World Trade Center started to fall to when somebody found me. So I say to myself, During that time when I thought I was going to die, would I have been grateful for the times I was tethered to my phone? The answer is yes. Here’s why: Read more
I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. Every year I say to myself that this will be the last post I write about 9/11. And then every year I write another post. So, now I have a whole archive of posts about my story: I was so close to death, from suffocation, that I went through the acceptance process. Then I lived. Now I write about it.
For a while I thought the most remarkable part of my story is not that I lived, but that I walked toward the building. I had time to get away, but I wanted to see people jumping. I couldn’t believe it. So I stood, right there at the bottom, looking up to see what was going on. I talked to people next to me. I did many things that I could have regretted. Read more