Miriam's Musings:A towering impact

I cried at the 9/11 Memorial when I visited. I brought my two grown boys with me for emotional support. The last time I was in the World Trade Center was a couple of weeks before 9/11 when I took my sons to the observation deck to show them where I had worked for 3 years. This is not a piece about the horrific attacks, politics, terrorism, religion, nor is it about the victims. That will continue to be discussed in millions of words by both lay people and experts all across the media. Countless novels and films feature the iconic towers; my favorite is Man on Wire about Philippe Petit’s famous high-wire dance across the sky. Recent fictional accounts of 9/11 include Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Amy Waldman’s Submission. This is simply my own personal connection to the towers.
My earliest memory of the World Trade Center was checking out the brand new buildings with my dad and uncle around the time the towers officially opened in 1973. We walked around the lobby and went up to a higher floor for the view. Ever since that visit, the towers served as a beacon for me. Whenever we spied them as we drove along the highways and crossed the bridges connecting the boroughs, I’d yell to my family “Look, there are the towers!” Sticking out of the Manhattan skyline, they were a monolithic structure that served as a geographical pointer to my beloved city.