Michelle Williams' 9/13/2001

received 9/13/2001

Hello to all-

I'm sending the following email to everyone, mostly to let everyone know that I and mine are okay. Even as the bomb scare hits the Empire State Building. This feels like it may never end.

I cannot begin to describe the last two days.

I woke up for work at 8:45 and at 9 Hayley's brother called from Missouri to see if we were watching TV. I was on the phone with him as the second plane hit, and not knowing what else to do, started walking to work with my headphones on and in the middle of walking through Tompkins Square Park I heard about the Pentagon, and then about the flight in Pennsylvania. My usual walk to work was filled with men and women in suits, because the subway lines were immediately stopped, and no one knew just yet that there would be no work that day, that... well, no one yet knew the scope.

So I get to work, which is dark, with the few of us who straggled in, and my friend Barry ran in and said "The tower collapsed!" and we all ran out among hundreds of people and watched the remaining tower burn- there is a direct sightline from Union Square West, down Broadway. And then, as I was standing there with one earphone on listening to the reports, we all watched the second tower just disintegrate- and people started wailing and water started pouring uncontrollably from my face and no one knew what to do.

The rest of the day was a blur- finding my way home, actively crying the whole way, listening to them say the same things over and over on the radio, finding Hayley and heading over to be with Ian, crossing Broadway and looking down and seeing black smoke rather than twin towers, finding Ian and Tessa and her friend Bliss and snuggling on a bed all together watching it over and over and over on the TV.

We finally decide to get some food and wander through the streets, including by the nearby hospital where there are just thousands of people there to give blood, or help, or just be together and watch. People all over the streets, just wandering because nothing is open and there is nowhere to go and if we are inside we will just watch it over and over and over. It will never get old.

As we are walking to one of two restaurants open in that part of the village, there is a child yelling. Nothing specific, just yelling, and his Dad is sort of pulling him along by the hand and we hear the little boy say, or rather almost scream "I just can't stop yelling".

And Hayley and I walk home at dusk, through the deserted, essentially quarantined village, where no cars but ambulances and police cars are allowed, and look down Broadway again to see nothing. And the night was so quiet we couldn't sleep. Just silent- none of the usual kids out, none of the music, nothing but occasional sirens.

Today there seemed no reason to sleep in, no reason to get up, just uselessness, and finally my restaurant (Union Square Cafe, affectionately called USC) called and said they would not open but they were organizing a volunteer center to feed the relief workers and we headed out the door.

It was amazing. Almost too many people showed up, and we sliced and simmered and cooked every last bit of food in the restaurant and then walked it in our arms to different relief places, feeding cops and emergency workers and anyone else hungry. When our food ran out we went to the business who donated food even though no one had received deliveries today.

This guy from Subway not only filled trash bags with bread and sandwich fixings, he lugged some of it over to the restaurant with us. No one who was asked refused. Ian and Tessa and another of her friends showed up in the early afternoon and helped organize a trip to Belleview where there were hundreds waiting in line with pictures of their missing friends and family. Most of them were numb and calm, a few just haunted, and one woman I saw looked as though she had always been crying, and always would.

Ian had an enormous box of Wendy's salads and I was carrying a literal bucket of dressing (donated by the deli across the way, with no questions asked) and I heard him say "my sister has the dressing" as he passed out the greens. Tessa sort of directed hungry people towards us and then led us into the building with hot food for the detectives who had been interviewing distraught relatives all day and night.

We delivered duck and calamari and zucchini, still piping hot, and had to walk through a police briefing to put the food in a kitchen on the fourth floor. It was completely surreal. These people, all of them, needing help and offering help, and being helped as much as they could- and we were certainly not the only ones. Cops were handing out Milky Ways and sandwiches, and people were getting water bottles for cops, and still I got home and just wanted to cry. I know I did all I could but everyone I love is still alive and well.

I haven't talked to my mom [Michelle's mother is currently visiting Bulgaria]and that freaks me out but I lost exactly no one I love and I feel like that will change me forever. Those of you not here, not in New York, I cannot tell you what it is like to walk the streets. I feel no connection to the world that is not here. People are suffering all over the world because of this, I know that, but the only people I want to comfort right now are the ones in the street, here in New York, breathing the smoke from not just debris but from thousands of dead parents and children and friends, trapped and burning since yesterday morning.

I want to hug the people in the street who wander with nowhere to go. And not just the people who have lost loved ones. Just the people who watched it, or felt it. Those of you not here cannot imagine what this is like. I have never been more terrified and yet I have never loved a city more. They are turning away volunteers, they are turning away blood donors, they are turning away people giving food because there are too many. You would not believe the sense of community right here, right now.

Anyway. This is what I had to get down. I am sending this to everyone who has contacted me to let you know that I, and all of my friends and family, are okay, and to let you know what has happened here. We are alive and thankful and freaked but most importantly, okay.

love to all of you,
Michelle