As you most likely know, I was in New York on 9/11. I was meant to be on jury duty downtown, but due to being held over on Monday, I got to go in late on Tuesday. I was about to turn off NY1 and leave my apartment when the news broke, so instead I was safe in my apartment way uptown. That didn't make it any less awful.
In the years immediately after, I watched all the documentaries and TV specials about it, I even had a 9/11 pictorial. I think it was a way of trying to work through the enormity, the disbelief of what had happened. Sometime in my early London years that changed. I no longer watch or read anything on 9/11. I don't need to. And I don't need to feel the way it would make me feel again.
I am not sure exactly when it was, but I do remember what shifted my perspective on 9/11. I was watching a documentary called 9/11: The Falling Man, where they were trying to identify the person in that wrenching photo. The show eventually identifies the man, but it explores several false leads and their stories along the way. One of those was a man whose wife was working in the North Tower. He was able to rule his wife out from being the falling person from other photos of her jumping from the tower. When the documentary maker asked him how he could be sure those photos were of her, he responded:
“I know it's her because the clothes and the shape. I would know her from her shadow.”
I would know her from her shadow.
Before that, 9/11 had been about the event for me - the enormous monstrosity of what had happened to my city. But with that line, for the first time I understood what had really been lost. The intimacy, the love that was taken away that day. I felt it in my chest.
So today, on the 25th anniversary, there will doubtlessly be all manner of tributes, documentaries and analyses. I will avoid all of it. It's enough for me to remember all the shadows.
I ♥️ NY,
Shaun
Shaun H. Coley ~ Surry Hills ~ Sydney, NSW ~ Australia
