I work in downtown Manhattan.
When I watched the events of September the 11th, 2001 on television, I was at my parents' house and my childhood home in Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight in Southern England. An unfamiliar yet easily recognisable skyline filled our screens. Wide streets filled with dust and shocked figures; the striking planes, the falling towers...everyone knows the images. I was horrified but I was safe. It was unbelievable and it was terrible, but it was the news. The same 14" television I stood in front of in the kitchen had shown riots, elections, scandals, police warnings and distant wars. I watched the footage, I exclaimed my surprise and shock and talked about it like everyone else.
I just watched, for the first time since 2001, a lot of the footage again. And now it's not news any more. I know the streets down which people ran. I know the storefronts, the crosswalks, the shapes the buildings make against the sky, and I walk among them every day.
We see the world through the television, and everyone filters what we see to a certain extent. It was the same footage, the same moments recorded and replayed, but I have to put my hands up and say that they hit me harder today than they did five years ago.
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