The first thing I noticed in New York were the clouds. Not the supermodels or the grit or the heat. Walking along streets filled with high rises I had never seen I couldn’t stop craning my neck to look up. Looking up I couldn’t help but fall in love with the big, curvy, luscious clouds. If ever a cloud looked heavenly these were them. They were brilliant white cut outs set sharply against a bright blue sky. San Francisco didn’t have clouds. We had fog, we had wind, we had cold blustery breezes. We never had air still enough or hot enough to create those heavenly creatures. The second thing I noticed were the planes. Everywhere I looked there was a plane flying somewhere. I imagined its destination and its passengers. Were they going somewhere far? I have to admit, it also brought to mind 9/11. The fact that seeing planes in the sky was an everyday event for New Yorkers and that the people who saw those fated planes may have, for just a brief moment, thought everything was just ok. I missed those two twin buildings. I missed them for their grounding nature. I missed them for their place South in the city. I had been to the very top a few years before 9/11. Knowing I had been on that roof made me know those buildings in a way I knew few others.
Recently a friend, a new friend, mentioned how blue the sky looked on that morning. And knowing other people noticed how blue the sky could be made me think that it should be a blue all it's own. A new color memorialized into a crayola box, a way for us to remember in a whole new way. This post wasn't supposed to be about 9/11, it was supposed to be about my first impressions of New York. But here I am...seeing and remembering, possibly for the first time.
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