Remembering 9/11, Twenty Years Later

CW: This post describes my recollection of September 11, 2001. My love, support, and prayers go out to all the survivors of this tragedy, those we lost, and all those left behind.

I am gazing up at a perfect blue September sky. So many of us remember that detail about this same date twenty years ago. It was such a crisp, cloudless day.

That sky is the only thing I remember clearly from September 11, 2001. I was fifteen years old, home sick from school with a high fever. I had spent the night before and most of the day alternating between feverish dreams and hazy moments awake.

In and out. Awake and asleep. My throat was dry. The phone was ringing. I wanted ginger ale. There were worried voices somewhere outside my room. I woke up again and immediately wanted to go back to sleep. New York City. Washington, D.C. My eyes were watering and I couldn’t remember why. I looked up and out the window at that clear, clear blue sky.

Late that afternoon, my fever broke. I sipped flat ginger ale through a plastic straw and stared at the television, trying to comprehend the shaky home videos that had been submitted to the news. Breaking out in another sweat, either from the dissipating fever or rising fear.

9/11 was the line of demarcation for many in my generation. On September 10, 2001, we were teenagers. After September 11, we were young adults.

Six months later, in the spring of 2002, my high school band traveled to New York City. On the last day of the trip, my friends and I stood shoulder to shoulder on a platform at Ground Zero. All around us, tall buildings stretched up to the sky. In front of us, emptiness. The footprint of where two towers had once stood. Debris and dust and this temporary platform where “normal” used to be.

Over the past twenty years, whenever I think back to 9/11, the memory is always twofold. First it feels not quite real, a hazy fever dream, the way I first experienced it. And then I am immediately back at Ground Zero. My friends and I are leaning against each other, holding each other up. It is the only way we can think of to bear the enormity of loss.

Twenty years later, staring up at another cloudless blue sky, I feel the same desperation to reach out, lean close, connect.

Lean hard, friends. This is how we hold each other up.  

#ReadLocalDC Blog Hop: It's About The People

In 2007, I came to Washington DC as a twenty-one-year-old grad student. I was newly married, newly enrolled at The George Washington University, and completely new to city life. I'd spent the previous four years going to college in Lynchburg, Virginia, where "mass transit" took the form of a city bus. On my first day at GWU, I couldn't even figure out how to get out of the Foggy Bottom Metro Station.

I had rarely felt so out of my league.

Granted, I'd been to DC before. Pretty much anyone who grew up in Maryland or Northern Virginia can tell you stories of class trips to the Smithsonian, complete with lunch on the National Mall and pictures outside the White House. I felt familiar with Washington, DC--but I didn't feel at home.

I spent my first few months in the District mentally cataloging all the ways I didn't fit in. The people around me talked faster, walked faster, and thought faster. I kept quiet and avoided eye contact at the same time that I wished I had someone to talk to. What could I possibly have in common with anyone else in this city? 

Then one day, I looked up. Not at my shoes, not at the book I was reading, not at the map that was falling apart from overuse. I looked up at the gorgeous classic buildings that I walked past every day on my way to class. I saw art installations and murals scattered throughout the District. There were bookstores and boutiques tucked in between government buildings and museums. I couldn't believe how much I'd missed. 

This city was beautiful.

But, I came to realize, not half as beautiful as the people that live here. 

Selfie outside the Library of Congress, sometime after DC began to feel like home.

I had made the mistake that we're all guilty of from time to time: I was so consumed by my own experience that I hadn't really paid attention to the people around me. Once I turned my focus outward, I realized that I had never been the outsider I imagined myself to be. In DC, you're almost as likely to meet someone who's originally from another country as you are to meet someone from another state! I was far from the only newcomer navigating my way through a strange city.  

As I started getting to know my fellow Washingtonians, the most common questions were, "Where are you from?" and "What brings you to DC?" Some people, like me, had come to DC for school. Others came for work, for family, or for politics and activism. Through these conversations, I came to realize that who we are, what we value, and what we believe doesn't form in a vacuum. Our past experiences had given us all very different reasons for being in DC and very different perspectives on our time here.

I had always been taught to listen to differences of opinion. It wasn't until I was a transplant in a city of transplants that I began to appreciate how we formed such different opinions in the first place.

When I began writing the Time Wrecker Trilogy, Washington, DC was the only setting I could have imagined for the story. The series centers around a fictional controversy: what if time travel was used as a form of criminal rehabilitation? Would it be moral to allow criminals to go back in time and undo their offense? Would it be ethical to deny them the opportunity? While the time travel element qualifies as science fiction, the emotional conflict is familiar for many of us. The characters in my story are simply trying to make the right choice in a society that is conflicted about what it means to be "right." 

In the first book of the trilogy, I tried to show the different sides of this contentious issue through the perspectives of my two main characters. But there was still something missing. These issues often have more than two sides, and I wanted to represent that. Throughout the story, I included blog posts, newspaper articles, and opinion pieces about timeline rectification written from a variety of perspectives. Writing these creative nonfiction pieces gave me a chance to step outside my own assumptions of why a person would be for or against erasing a crime from the past. It made me think about how someone would have arrived at their position and why they might hold it so strongly. It made me realize how people on every side of an issue could feel misunderstood, misrepresented, and outright attacked.

With our monuments and marble buildings and grand avenues, Washington, DC exudes an aura of confidence and power. But when we look past those things and into the eyes of our neighbors, it's easy to see that we all have moments of being the "outsiders." I've lived in the area for over a decade now, but I'm still tapping in to that lesson I learned when I first came here: when we're brave enough to step outside our own experience, we often find we aren't alone.

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Thanks for reading! To return to the #ReadLocalDC Blog Hop on Ellen Smith's website, click here: http://bit.ly/readlocaldc

Peeping In On Washington, D.C.'s Creative Scene

How do you know when spring has finally come to Washington, D.C.? Some people say it's when the cherry blossoms peak, while others wait for the annual White House Easter Egg roll. For the creatives living in the nation's capital, spring is ushered in by an annual contest featuring our favorite marshmallow treats: peeps!

As someone who loves both creativity and sugar in all its forms, I've looked forward to the Washington Post's Peeps Diorama Contest every spring for the last ten years. Not familiar? Take a peep at these sugary creations:

Source: The Washington Post
Classic Peeps: A Decade of Sugary Social Commentary by Elizabeth Chang

Aren't those great? My favorite is the diorama of the house from Up. So creative!

I was disappointed but not entirely surprised when the Post announced a few months ago that it would no longer hold the annual competition. The Peeps diorama contest was an awesome tradition, but if entries were already slowing down, it's best to end on a high note and discontinue it.

That said, I was thrilled to hear that Washington City Paper took up the baton and hosted a peeps diorama contest for 2017. The entries were just as rife with sugary social commentary as always, with The Peeple vs. O.J. Simpson taking first prize.

🐥👀Peep this: it's the winner of our Peeps diorama contest, "The Peeple vs. O.J. Simpson". Pick up a print copy today or head to our site to see the rest! #PeepsWCP #WashingtonCityPeeper

A post shared by Washington City Paper (@washingtoncitypaper) on Apr 13, 2017 at 8:34am PDT

Source: Instagram feed for @washingtoncitypaper

You can check out all of the finalists here.

I love this fun local tradition and I hope Washington City Paper will host it again next year! Which Peep diorama was your favorite? Share it with us in the comments!

Story Research: Visiting the Supreme Court

Every so often, doing research for a story requires me to ask some pretty odd questions:

How long does it take to paint the outside of a 950 square foot bungalow?

How did small farm owners in southwestern Virginia feel about the Revolutionary War? Were they for or against independence?

How long does it take to drown?

Fortunately, finding out answers to questions like these just takes a little Google-sleuthing. Other times, doing research for a story requires me to go a little further. As I'm plotting out Book Three of my trilogy-in-progress, I had one burning question:

What is it like to actually witness a Supreme Court argument?

Google will get you pretty far with that one, too, but I decided I needed some first-hand experience. Yesterday I hopped on the Metro and went into D.C. to visit the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court arguments are open to the public, but seats fill up fast on a first-come, first-serve basis. The arguments are so popular that the Court actually has two lines for public attendees: one for people who want to attend a full argument and another for people who want to sit in the back for three minutes. Lines start forming hours before the Court actually opens. There's no guarantee that everyone who waits in line will get in, either. I decided to aim for the three minute line to increase my chances of getting in to the courtroom.

Yesterday, the Court was actually scheduled to have three arguments: one at 10:00, one at 11:00, and one at 1:00. I wasn't particular about which court case I heard, but I did want to go on a day where there was an afternoon session so that if I was running late, I'd still end up with a chance of getting in. That turned out to be a good idea. I got to Union Station at around 11:00 and hoofed it down First Street to the Supreme Court. I was in line on the Court's plaza by about 11:20 and got to the front of the line at 1:15.

View of the Supreme Court from across First Street. See how long the line outside is? That's not even half of it!

Spending two hours waiting on the plaza gave me plenty of time to take notes on the scenery, the building's architecture, and the city around us. I ended up filling up a small legal pad with notes while I waited. The building itself is so ornate that it seemed everywhere I looked, I noticed something new. The Supreme Court and the plaza outside are made of marble, which is cool to the touch (even with the sun overhead at high noon.) As we inched closer to the front of the line, I could see the chandeliers through the glass of the main doors and the carvings on the ceiling.

That's when it really became exciting. The closer I got, the more I could imagine my main characters coming to the courtroom themselves. In my story, the characters are very invested in the outcome of the argument they come to witness. How thrilling would it be for them just to stand on the steps outside the building where the whole matter would finally be decided?

At the front of the line, I was given a red ticket and directed in through the visitor's entrance. The security is understandably pretty tight. We went through the first metal detector and upstairs to the hall outside the courtroom. There was a very small locker room for our bags, which cost a quarter to lock. Originally, I'd planned to bring my small notepad and a pen in with me, but the guards asked that we not bring anything at all. We went through security again before lining up outside the doors to the courtroom.

The website and guides are very clear that those of us in the three minute line might not have a good view, but we would be able to hear everything. We were directed to three rows of chairs in the back section, which was separated from the main courtroom seating by enormous pillars and red velvet curtains that had been pulled back.

I was lucky that I was directed to a seat in the front row of this section, midway between two pillars, so I had a pretty good view! I could see all eight justices (rest in peace, Justice Scalia). The 1:00 argument was Manrique vs. the United States. During the time I was there, the attorney for Mr. Manrique was presenting his argument to the justices. I was pretty impressed with the attorney's public speaking skills--I get nervous speaking in front of groups of people, so I can only imagine presenting a case before the Supreme Court.

The courtroom is entirely made of marble and decorated with carvings, pillars, and more red velvet curtains, in keeping with the rest of the building. I was fixated on a large gold clock that hung in the center of the front wall, above the justices. Our five minutes were up very quickly, and we were quietly escorted out so the next group could come in.

After retrieving my bag from the locker room, I left the building through the large main doors that looked out over the Capitol building.

The view of the Capitol from the front steps of the Supreme Court

I took a moment just to soak it in. I've been to D.C. a million times, but I rarely stop and think about how many decisions happen here. D.C. is so intimately involved in the laws and justice of our nation, and yet at times it all feels so far away.

So close to justice and yet so far away. Sounds like a good idea for a novel.