Thread by @jeffjarvis

I remember the silence coming up to the concourse in the World Trade Center, a place that was never silent.

On the concourse, I remember the sight of high heels abandoned by their owners who had run away. I remember a faint smell of smoke. I remember the newsstand proprietor, calmly shutting his shop.

I remember the face of the cop, a woman, urgently shouting at us as we came up from the concourse, ordering us to RUN!

I remember calling home and leaving a message for my wife, telling her something had happened at the World Trade Center, but I was fine. I did not have guts enough to listen to that message until a year later.

I remember the heat of the blast of the second jet hitting the South Tower. We all ran.

I remember the paper falling from offices.

I remember sights I still cannot speak about.

I remember the sky, so blue, except for the black smoke streaked across it.

I remember us on the street, watching, asking each other what could have happened. We did not know.

I remember standing by a manhole cover where the worker had a portable radio (I remember those). There we heard about the jet hitting the Pentagon. Then we knew.

My phone would not work. I remember paying a pizza parlor cook to use his landline to call into the newsroom.

I remember wondering what would happen to the towers, how the fires could ever be extinguished. I could not imagine how.

I remember the office worker from one of the towers who came out with water from sprinklers on her, dazed, unsure where to go.

I remember the tourist who asked me to take a picture of him with the burning tower behind. I refused, appalled.

I remember the South Tour bending.

I remember running until all was suddenly dark. I remember hearing huge pieces of the tower fall around me. I remember bumping into planters and doors.

I remember finding refuge inside a building, people trying to wash the dust of destruction of their faces.

I remember the smell, the electric smell that would not leave the city for months.

I remember the black tracks of tears cutting the white dust of the towers on a Black woman's face.

I remember walking east, seeing first responders rushing west, asking those of us who carried to dust of the destruction what it was like there.

I remember the refugees from Manhattan filling the Brooklyn Bridge.

I remember the stares of people who did not carry the dust, looking at me with fright as I walked north, toward Times Square.

I remember stopping at one bodega and another asking to use their phones to try to call home. My phone was lost in my run from the destruction. I learned later that to my wife I was missing. None of the phones worked.

I remember reaching Times Square, shut and nearly empty as it would not be again until the pandemic.

I remember writing my story of the day in an empty office. nj.com/the_jersey_jou…

I remember trying to get home on a boat but the lines were too long. I stood for hours waiting for the Lincoln Tunnel to open. I am grateful to the man from Staten Island who drove me to my office in Jersey City.

I do not remember what it was like in the newsroom there. Colleagues have reminded me. I was too dazed.

I do not remember driving home. But I do remember arriving. I could not hug my family until I had taken off my clothes and the dust of destruction they carried and washed it off me. Then I could. I don't remember what we said, only that I was there at last that night.

I remember the tragically futile pictures of the missing, the gone all over Manhattan. I remember the Pile. I remember that smell.

I remember all this. I will remember until I die. But I confess that I am tired of the memories.

I wish we would devote such reflection and empathy as we do to 9/11 to those we are losing to COVID, those we lost in the wars that came after 9/11, those killed on Jan. 6, those killed by police and guns. There is so much more to remember.

And so on this day, on 9/11, I remember more than that day. medium.com/whither-news/a…

(I messed up the threading. The rest is here:)

https://twitter.com/jeffjarvis/status/1436654772220841985