In our parents’ generation people asked, “What were you doing when Kennedy was shot?” In ours, they ask, “What were you doing on 9/11?” I was recently asked that and collected some thoughts. While this would be ideal for a blog entry next 9/11, it’s ripe and ready, and I find it poignant…so I’ll share it now.
I was in Italy’s Cinque Terre on 9/11. I was filming. I figure the first plane hit the North Tower just when we were filming the romantic Via dell’Amore, the “Pathway of Love,” which is a lovers’ meeting point between the two towns of Riomaggiore and Manarola. So for me, the Via dell’Amore is no longer the “Pathway of Love”…it’s the “Pathway of 9/11.”
Hiking with our TV gear into the next village, we found a tiny bar packed with people as if it were a makeshift theater. Everyone was staring jaw-dropped at the TV. I saw the smoldering tower and thought it was some kind of a disaster movie. Then people told me the news. My crew and I gathered outside and decided the only thing we could do was to keep on working. We went into a restaurant across the street and filmed my favorite pasta dish ‘ with seafood, cooked in foil, so when you opened the foil, a lovely genie of fragrant steam enveloped you. I remember opening the foil, camera rolling, inhaling the ultimate pasta experience of Italy’s Riviera, and considering the tragedy unfolding in the US, the human loss, and inability for anyone to know the extent of that loss ‘ or the long-term consequences. The steam fogged up my glasses. I inhaled the wet, delicious, tempting steam, smiling hungrily and contentedly, knowing the camera was filming ‘ but thinking about the turmoil coming from this tragedy. Now, a decade later, every time I watch that segment of that episode, I remember the newscast on Italian TV in that bar, and the confusion and sadness that accompanied the opening of that foil.
We had a Rick Steves tour group in Vernazza that day. That night, all the Americans were huddling together, wondering what would happen next. There was a line at the town’s one public phone booth. There were two distinct camps of travelers: those who thought, “It’s tragic but there’s nothing we can do, so party on”; and those who couldn’t continue with their vacation ‘ but also couldn’t get back home. My enduring memory was of solidarity ‘ Americans caring for each other and locals caring for Americans. All the people of the Cinque Terre were Americans with us; they cared for us and did what they could to help us out during that disturbing time, when no one knew what was coming next.