At the end of the 2000 year, i was in New York to mix an album with my indie rock band. I was 21 and it was an amazing experience… and i felt in love with New York. Its effervescence, the New Yorkers, its cinematic light, the music of the street, the ocean at its doorstep, everything invited me to artistic creation.
I exactly remember where i was the 9/11/01 when i saw the towers fall. I also remember exactly what i felt. It was New York and New Yorkers who were bleeding, who were in pain. It was too the very end of my carelessness. It was the end of the word in which i had grew up. It was a beginning of a world more and more difficult, hard, unfair and murderous.
I came back in New York few times during this last 19 years. But i didn’t visited the memorial before. I think it was too hard. I wasn’t ready to ending my grief, of my own youngness, of this old world, of these people who died like that… Even if i wasn’t living in this city, i was still hurt by what was happened this day.
I was back in New York in march 2020 (perfect timing!) and after taking part in a protest for women’s rights in Washington Square Park, i crossed streets to south Manhattan until the memorial. It was a perfect sunny sunday afternoon.
I was with 2 foreigners friends. A Japanese man the same age as me and and a young and lovely 20 years old Austrian girl who have had the idea of this visit to the memorial. I have accepted her idea, thinking it was time and i think them presence close to me gave me the courage to went. They were enough friendly and new in my life to create the perfect context for this pilgrimage.
It was a really beautiful, sweet and emotional moment. I saw some families crying and touching a name engrave in stone. But kids playing around too…
We shared with my Japanese friend our memories about this day and what we had felt. When we turned to our Austrian friend, we realized that she was just a baby at the time. I then became aware that if 9/11 was a part of my personal history, for her it was a part of History.
They helped me to accept what happened was a part of world history and finally that through the eyes of youth… the life goes on!
