My Experience Volunteering at Ground Zero, September 11, 2001

The dust stayed on my work boots for months after it happened. A light gray dusting clung to the laces and tongue and burrowed deep into the soles. The small corner of the closet where I threw them after it was over was otherwise unoccupied, as though the other inhabitants of the closet, random sneakers and skates, all fell back in reverence, giving wide berth to my boots. My clothes went through life normally, though, washed and dried, freed of the dust. They were rolled or folded with no ceremony, put into a drawer, only to be pulled out again when a t-shirt or boxers was called for. But it was my boots that I had trouble putting back on. They were there, privy to the sad and intimate moments that tatooed the days that September. They were on my feet, pushing away debris, moving piles of broken rubble and Red Cross crates. They were scuffed and gouged by twisted scraps of metal that were scattered randomly around the street, nicked by bricks and granite that refused to yield to a kick, and stained by tears and dust that were ever present at Ground Zero. I wore them while volunteering down at the World Trade Center in the days after September 11, 2001.

New York was violently changed that morning. Her skyline, once anchored by the grand monarchs of the city, The Twin Towers, shifted off balance, now just another silhouette of skyward reaching buildings at dusk. The Empire State Building, once the jewel of a bygone era, was now struggling to regain her prominence after years of laboring in the shadow of the Towers. Her people were momentarily ice water shocked out of the daily grind that the city yokes them with. But when the call came for volunteers, her brood responded mightily, with grit and determination. For those weeks and months after, there were no colors, no religions, and no dividing lines. Yankee and Met fans rallied shoulder to shoulder, Brooklyn-ites and Staten Islanders dug together while trading encouraging shouts instead of inter-borough catcalls. There were only New Yorkers that day, no matter where they came from.