September 11, 2001 was supposed to be a nondescript kind of day that didn't matter. I had skipped work on a Tuesday and was lounging in bed. It was kinda bad that I was skipping because I had already had Monday off to begin with.

That was the best Monday in a while. It was a beautiful, sunny fall day as I walked around the Little Five Points area. My red afro was shining in the sunlight as the hippy population all around me didn't blink because there's no such thing as weird or abnormal in Little Five Points. Nag Champa incense bounced around in my paper bag as I left Junkman's Daughter and walked anywhere I pleased without a care in the world.

Everything just felt so right, so easy, so beautiful. I even decided to treat myself to a delicious lunch at Bridgetown Grill, a Caribbean cuisine restaurant. While I was enroute to Bridgetown, I still recall a clear thought crossing my mind in the middle of a great day in a great city. "Hmm...Nothing's happened in a long time that shook America to its core. Nothing like Pearl Harbor. I wonder what could happen to break us down like that ever again." The only thing I could think of was literally seeing America shook to its core and having buildings crumble before my eyes. But that was just a creative, overactive imagination. (NOTE: This is not fiction; this is an actual recollection.)

Then, my Mom woke me up. I was in my Grandmama gown that my grandmother gave me. It's literally one of those zip up gowns that grandmothers answer the door in, but it's so comfortable. Mom was kind of frantic as she told me, "A plane hit the World Trade Center." I waved it off and went back to sleep. It was obviously just an accident. Someone would save the lives, and it would be okay. I wanted my Z's.

Amazingly, I woke up later and felt the pain later. I felt that we were officially shaken at our core. My world crumbled around me for three days as I lay across my bed in a depressed mode because someone could take a plane and use it as a weapon against innocent people. So, I could only imagine what it was like in New York and Washington, DC.

I could reflect on and on, but we all know how it went down. It's still amazing six years later. I'll never forget what happened. What scares me is that 54 years from now, our children and grandchildren will treat September 11 just the way I looked at Pearl Harbor: just another day. It's quite possible, but I hope our generation doesn't let it go down like that.