Three observations you made while visiting the 9/11 Memorial:
- Looking around, I noticed that there were a lot of people either on their phones taking pictures or having conversations with the people next to them. Few were just observing / taking a moment of silence. There was, though, an older woman I saw (with her husband) who ran her hand over the engraving of a woman’s name and the words “and her unborn child” – in contrast, there were two separate girls spotted who both used selfie sticks to take photos of themselves posing in front of the memorial.
- As far as where people were standing around the perimeter, I figured there would be more people standing in the sunnier areas, but people were really just scattered about despite where the sunlight was hitting (maybe because some people were looking for a specific name on the memorial, or were just making their way around the whole memorial?).
- I observed the way I felt – despite the wind that day it was pretty serene, and the scale of the monument and the number of names was unbelievable. I was contemplative, thinking about what it must have been like on that day (knowing some family friends that lost relatives to this attack). It was beautiful how the copper outline around the lettering of the names made them (subtly) shine in the sunlight against the black slab.
What are some places you visit to remember?
I visit my family’s second house down in the Florida Keys (specifically a particular bench thats in the backyard, right next to the canal) to remember the days when my late grandfather and I would fish together. I visit a certain bench in Stuyvesant Park to remember a time when my family sat there and talked to one another, just a day or two before I moved into my dorm at the beginning of the year. I visit Miami’s Freedom Tower to remember all the Cuban refugees that passed through there back in the 50’s, and how my grandparents were among them.
