Remembrance

Remembrance and Inspiration

March 11, 2002 - 2 beams of light were lit to watch over the ongoing recovery effort on its 6 month anniversary

25 years. Those of us who were old enough have a powerful core memory of waking up that morning to the news of the attacks. I don't tell this story often, but if you'll indulge me, I'd like to share mine. In 2001, I was living alone in my first apartment, going to UCLA, and had spent the night ignoring my bedtime in lieu of writing an early draft of an action sequence that's now part of Terminal Spiral. In the sequence, a terror attack designed to lure in first responders rocks a New York City building. After hours of envisioning the building collapse, the terror of the city, and putting character Annie Diamond through the wringer as she learns what happened to her old squad, I forced myself to get some sleep.

That was September 10th, 2001.

It was maybe 3 hours before my alarm went off - 5:50 on the West Coast. There was no music playing, just a news report, and as the words formed, I thought I was still dreaming about the scene I wrote. Then I turned on the TV. What unfolded next was the same for many people. Fear, shock, a surreal sense of shattered safety. For me, I thought my dad was in DC, and no one could reach him. Remember, this was well before most people carried a cell phone, and since my father basically works in a SCIF, he's never been allowed to carry one anyway. I did the only thing I could: Got in my car and drove from LA to Orange County, hoping to find someone who would answer a phone. During that white-knuckle drive to my parents' house, I replayed the scene I'd written in my mind, blaming myself for writing about a horrific attack as if I had somehow manifested it like that episode of The Twilight Zone where everything the author types comes to life. And while I eventually found my dad at home working the phones, he confessed he was only there because he sent a friend in his place, and that friend was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. Like everyone, that day profoundly changed me, not just in my own worldview, but in watching a loved one carry the twofold guilt of being part of the National Security complex that felt they'd failed, and his own survivor's guilt for giving up his seat on that plane. It took me a year to open my draft again. I couldn't look at what I'd written without seeing the footage of the towers replay in my mind. Eventually, I forced myself to face it, to use all those messy emotions and funnel them into Annie Diamond's character. Reviewers have said that Books 2 and 3 of The Helix Project "truly capture the fear and grit of post-9/11 Los Angeles," and having forced those manuscripts out while the world unraveled, I'm honored to hear that. It is my humble author's version of "Never Forget." I hope you all give a thought today (and every day) to the people who run face first into disaster and those who wait for them to come home