Honestly? It was quite surreal. That was literally my hometown that was falling apart and I wasn't there and I couldn't get there if I needed to. I spent more time trying to get in contact with people I was worried about than I did watching the local news and their reactions to what was happening in the States. People were overwhelmingly kind to me though, knowing I was from New York.

What's truly disconcerting and leaves me feeling out of place is not that I was in Venice when it happened but now, years later when everyone (and conversations do still on occasion turn into remembrances) speaks about this shared commonality, this sense of unity and loss...I'm so far removed from it because unlike most native new Yorkers still living here, I didn't see the towers fall or the ash in the sky, I didn't spend those first few raw months (even years) passing by Ground Zero...

And I'm rambling.