I often think about how an ordinary morning can shift into something unimaginable, and September 11, 2001, is one of the clearest examples of that. A typical commuter that day might have woken up thinking about nothing more dramatic than beating traffic, finishing a presentation, or grabbing their usual coffee before heading into the office. Imagine someone catching the subway into Lower Manhattan just after 8 a.m.—shoulder to shoulder with the same strangers they saw every day. Maybe they were reading the paper, maybe listening to music, maybe replaying an argument from the night before. When they stepped out of the station, the air would've felt like any other early fall morning: bright, a little crisp, busy in that familiar New York way. They might have bought a bagel from their usual corner cart, chatted briefly with the vendor, and walked toward the office thinking about deadlines, weekend plans, or picking up groceries later. Everything around them would have felt predictable—traffic noise, honking taxis, crowds moving with practiced rhythm. And then, within minutes, that rhythm collapsed. A sound, a plume of smoke, people running, confusion replacing certainty. What had started as a routine commute—one repeated hundreds of times before—became a moment where normalcy shattered without warning. That contrast is what stays with me: how quickly an ordinary morning can turn into something none of us are prepared for. It's a stark reminder of how fragile our sense of routine really is.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, a commuter may have left their apartment when the sun just rose, holding coffee, a briefcase or laptop, and earbuds in which they had the recent news or music playing. They would have faced crowded sidewalks, waited for the subway or bus in crowds, exchanged hurried greetings with fellow commuters, and reminded themselves of the day ahead—meetings, deadlines, errands, all the while unaware that in hours, their familiar cadence of day would suddenly disintegrate. Then, as they reached their destination—perhaps entering the lobby of a high-rise, or sitting at a desk in a cubicle. News of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center began to circulate. From a routine journey to confusion, fear and disbelief. The mundane and the commonplace suddenly seemed fickle, revealing how fragile the semblance of how it had been, commuting itself in those moments seemed tenuous and ordinary, ordinary being the epitome of safety and control that had exposed itself to the power of times completely outside of one's control, leaving all of those who witnessed September 11 with an indelible experience.