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94th and 98th floors - instantly killing everyone on board, and wreaking incomprehensible carnage across five full floors of the building.

Witnesses on the upper floors of the south tower were stunned to see a wall of flame burst through the south windows of Tower One 130 feet away - followed by a shower of disintegrating desks, files, furniture, computer terminals, airplane parts and burning bodies."

- from the documentary film "New York: The Center Of The World" by Ric Burns.

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That was the start of a sequence of events, beyond belief, events I couldn't keep up with, couldn't wrap my mind around . . . couldn't comprehend . . .

ONE YEAR LATER: 11:09AM, Wednesday morning, New York City, September 11th, 2002.

Woke up early,

to a day,

to a moment in time.

I had always loved the twin towers, and had always wanted to go all the way to the top. I actually stayed in the Holiday Inn Winter Garden hotel in the summer of 1994 as part of a summer RA with NCSA, just after the structure had been repaired from the '93 bombing. I didn't go the top, I think, because the trip was fast (3-4 days), and I ran out of time.

On impulse, I went down to the WTC site early this morning, ground zero, to be there, as it has been for the last year, for one last time - for it is today both a place in transition and a moment in time, and as we transition forward, we'll leave that place as it is for one last time, forever belonging to that day.

Many New Yorkers, myself initially among them, really just wanted to let the day pass, and I wasn't sure why something inside of me wanted rather to turn and face it - again. Perhaps it's the Scott in me (or is the Irish?), but the bagpipe processions brought so much of it back. I remember those men, afraid, frightened, yet unflinching, they went into those towers, up there in the sky, burning, and even after the south tower fell, still they stayed as close as they could, to do whatever they could because they refused to abandon or forget us, and I want to mark this day, because I will not abandon or forget them, what they did. This is what I want to foreground in my memory: not so much what happened, but how people responded.

A few weeks after 9.11.2001, in a church where we were rehearsing MacBeth (I was the stage manager), Bob, the Senior Paster, asked the director and I if we would like to sign a banner that would later be taken down to the WTC site, to write our thoughts and feelings. A remember quite clearly a prayer and promise that came to me, and I wrote:

"We will never surrender our long fought for and hard won freedoms, and we will never forget those who were lost."

GOODBYE TO THE TOWERS: 8PM, Wednesday evening, New York City, September 11th, 2002.

Washington Square Park: candles in the gathering darkness.

A surprisingly hard, sad day, at least for New Yorkers. A year of shock that's finally given way to an acceptance of what happened: almost by surprise, I realized that today - tonight - I finally said goodbye to the towers, to NYC the way it was, the way it felt, and to all the lost lives. I lit a candle, to say goodbye, to my own tomorrow, to hope . . .

I didn't really realize till later, but after that 1st anniversary, I think I finally found the courage to commit more fully to theater, to read - to devour - plays, to act. That fall, I took an introductory acting course at NYU's School of Professional and Continuing Studies, and then I took a monologue and audition workshop. And plays, plays, plays . . . I took them apart, fascinated to discover how they worked, how I worked . . . how life works . . .

Learn more about this author, Christopher Calliope.
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