18 years. Wow. Every year on 9/11 I can’t help but flash back to when I first found out. I was 19 years old when the planes hit the twin towers. I was driving to my morning class and vaguely heard something about a terrorist attack happening in New York while flipping channels on the radio. I thought it was odd… but in true Allison fashion, I was running late and was distracted. I walked in to my wood paneled class room in the basement of the Architecture building. The room of about 40 people was incredibly still. Our professor waited until everyone filed in and gave a brief recap of the mornings events. We all sat in shocked silence.

He had rummaged up an old radio from the basement (apparently no TVs were available). This is pre smart phone days, when you still had to rely on television and radio for current events. No one moved, it felt like no one even breathed as we felt the weight of those towers crashing down on all of us. We all had so many questions. Who did this, why did they do this. Was our government in tact? Was the United States now at war?

I have such fond memories of New York City. My Grandmother lived in upstate New Jersey and would take us in the to the city every summer we visited. We would ride horse drawn carriages around Central Park, eat pretzels from street vendors and she would drag us to MoMA, which felt like torture to a 7 year old. But now looking back I think those summers at MoMA fueled a love of art.

As I sit here at my desk, I can’t help but be grateful that no one I knew was injured or immediately affected by the attacks. I’m so grateful there are people who sacrifice and serve our country and respond in times of need. I can’t do much, but I can offer a sale in my shop as a humble thank you. From now until Monday I’ll be offering 10% off. No code needed, just wanted to say I’m grateful.