Seven Years Ago Today

As I have every year on September 11 since 2001, I woke up this morning thinking about the day, remembering the sound of the first crash from my Brooklyn apartment, and bracing myself before I turn on the TV to watch the memorial. This morning I turned on the Today Show to find no mention of 9/11 in the five minutes I had it on. Instead, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, the Today Show medical chief was being interviewed about vaccines, about how there's a measles outbreak due in large part to parents opting out of vaccinating their children. She even mentioned "the herd"-- a percent of the population that needs to be vaccinated in order to protect the rest-- a concept I learned about in epidemiology class just last week. What was going on? How did the decision come about among the NBC execs not to mention 9/11? I turned the TV off and then back on again a few minutes later to see if there was any coverage of the memorial. Nope. Just an interview with DeNiro (even he didn't mention of 9/11) and Pacino about some new movie they're in. But what did it mean for me that instead of 9/11, there was a public health segment on? Maybe it didn't mean anything, but it made me think about my own life and how far I've come since 9/11/01.

Seven years ago when I heard the first plane hit one of the towers, I was in the middle of writing an email to an agent I had met the week before at the MTV movie award after-party. This agent was helping and encouraging me to submit to SNL. I was 23 and gung-ho that I was going to be Tina Fey, even before Tina Fey was Tina Fey. I never finished writing that email. Instead I went outside to see what was going on. I heard sirens and smelled an odd, burning scent, but different than anything I had ever smelled before and have ever smelled since those first few weeks after the towers fell. It was the smell of burning flesh and a burning city. I saw smoke above and figured there was a fire somewhere, but it was oddly quiet on the streets of Brooklyn. It was a Tuesday and my roommates had already left for work while I was home doing my first of many freelance writing gigs. I turned on the TV and watched the news. I called my aunt to see if she was okay, since her apartment was across the street from WTC. She wasn't able to get in touch with my uncle, for what turned out to be the rest of the day. As I was on the phone, I heard from the news that a plane had hit the Pentagon. I told my aunt who reacted, "We're really under attack." It was a scary realization. And probably the closest I've come to feeling helpless and unsafe in this country. My roommates eventually came home after being stuck on trains unable to get past downtown and for the next 3 days, we sat and watched the news. It was unbelievable. The trains weren't running and so we stayed in Brooklyn, watching on the news what was happening across the river. Eventually, we walked down to the Brooklyn Promenade, which has a perfect view of downtown Manhattan. A memorial had formed, people milled around carrying candles, but mostly people sat and stared at the new skyline and the smoke and soot that still was wafting eastward into Brooklyn.

Back at my apartment, after a few days of watching the news, seeing the same family-members over and over on the screen asking the public if they had seen their loved-ones, we decided we couldn't take anymore. So, we watched Sex and the City. Episode after episode. It was the perfect escape to be watching happy New Yorkers in a happy New York. It was candy and it was exactly what I needed. And it made me realize the power of entertainment and escapism. Critics of television claim that it desensitizes audiences from their real lives. What's wrong with that? Real life isn't always so fun.

As far as where I am and where I've come since 9/11/01, I'm here, in Baltimore, after living in both New York and LA twice in the last seven years. And I've come from being a naive 23 year old just starting out in the entertainment industry, thinking I could land a writing job at SNL without any comedy experience, to a slightly less naive 30 year old with actual experience but the desire for something bigger. Escapist entertainment with a message? Maybe. Stay tuned.