"Buddies," which premiered on Sept. 17, 1985, cost just $27,000 to make. (Vinegar Syndrome/Roe Bressan/Frameline Distribution)

First it was referred to as a “mysterious illness.” Later it was called “gay cancer,” “gay plague” and “GRID,” an acronym for gay-related immune deficiency. Most egregiously, some called it “4H disease” — shorthand for “homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs and Haitians,” the populations most afflicted in the early days.

While these names were ultimately replaced by AIDS — and later, after the virus was identified, by HIV — they reflected two key realities about AIDS at the time: a lack of understanding about the disease and its strong association with gay men.

Although the first report in the mainstream press about AIDS appeared in 1981, the first movies to explore the disease wouldn’t come for four more years.

When the feature film “Buddies” and the television film “An Early Frost” premiered 40 years ago, in the fall of 1985, AIDS had belatedly been breaking into the public consciousness.

Earlier that year, the first off-Broadway plays about AIDS opened: “As Is” by William Hoffman and “The Normal Heart” by writer and activist Larry Kramer. That summer, actor Rock Hudson disclosed that he had AIDS, becoming the first major celebrity to do so. Hudson, who died in October 1985, was a friend of President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan. Reagan, who had been noticeably silent on the subject of the disease, would go on to make his first — albeit brief — public remarks about AIDS in September 1985.

Five days before Reagan’s speech, “Buddies,” an independent film made for US$27,000 and shot in nine days, premiered at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on Sept. 12, 1985.

A film on the front lines

If you haven’t heard of “Buddies,” that’s not surprising; the film mostly played art houses and festivals before disappearing.

Its filmmaker, Arthur J. Bressan Jr., was best known for his gay pornographic films, although he’d also made documentaries such as “Gay USA.” “Buddies” would go on to reach a wider audience thanks to a 2018 video release by Vinegar Syndrome, a distribution company that focuses on restoring cult cinema, exploitation films and other obscure titles.

It was inspired by the real-life buddies program at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, an organization Kramer co-founded. At the time, many people dying of the disease had been rejected by family and friends, so a buddy might be the only person who visited a terminal AIDS patient.

The film feels like a play, in that most of the movie takes place in a single room and features just two characters: a naive young gay man named David and a young AIDS patient named Robert. Over the course of the film, the characters open up about their lives and their fears about the growing epidemic. It also includes a sex scene — something other early AIDS films completely avoided — in which David and Robert engage in safer sex.

AIDS packaged for the masses

The remarkably frank and intimate approach to the epidemic in “Buddies” contrasts sharply to the television film “An Early Frost,” which premiered on NBC on Nov. 11, 1985.

The film’s protagonist is a successful Chicago lawyer named Michael who hasn’t come out to his family, much to the distress of his long-term partner, Peter. When Michael finds out he has AIDS, he’s forced to come out to his parents, both as gay and as having AIDS.

Much of the film deals with Michael’s self-acceptance and his attempts to mend his relationships. Yet the production of “An Early Frost” was fraught with concerns about depicting both homosexuality and AIDS. Unlike David and Robert, Michael and Peter show no physical affection — they barely touch each other.

Knowledge of AIDS was still evolving — a test for HIV was approved in March 1985 — so screenwriters and life partners Daniel Lipman and Ron Cowen went through 13 revisions of the script. The real-life fears and misconceptions about how AIDS could and could not be transmitted were central to the storyline, adding extra pressure to be accurate in the face of evolving understanding of the virus.

Despite losing NBC $500,000 in advertisers, “An Early Frost” drew 34 million viewers and was showered with Emmy nominations the following year.

A quilt of stories emerges

“Buddies” and “An Early Frost” opened up AIDS and HIV as subject matters for film and television.

They begat two lanes of HIV storytelling that continue to this day.

The first is an approach geared to mainstream audiences that tends to avoid controversial issues such as sex or religion and instead focuses on characters who grapple with both the illness and the stigma of the virus.

The second is an indie approach that’s often more confrontational, irreverent and angry at the injustice and indifference AIDS patients faced.

The former approach is seen in 1993’s “Philadelphia,” which earned Tom Hanks his first Oscar. The critically and commercially successful film shares a number of story points with “An Early Frost”: Hanks’ character, a big-city lawyer, finds out he is HIV positive and must confront bias head-on. HIV also features prominently in later films such as “Precious” (2009) and “Dallas Buyers Club” (2013), both of which, like “Philadelphia,” became awards darlings.

The edgier, more critical approach can be seen in the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s, a film movement that developed as a response to the epidemic. Gregg Araki’s “The Living End” (1992) is a key film in the movement: It tells the story of two HIV-positive men who become pseudo-vigilantes in the wake of their diagnoses.

Through the lens of Tim Flach, exotic bird species, farm animals, and our canine companions brim with personality. Through books like Dogs, Endangered, and Birds, he highlights familiar animals alongside wildlife we don’t often get the chance to meet face-to-face (thankfully, in some cases). Flach’s vibrant bird portraits and projects centered around the human relationship with animals give us the chance to admire feathered and furry creatures up-close in striking compositions.

Forthcoming from Abrams later next month, Flach’s new book, Feline, celebrates our unending love for cats of all varieties. From domestic shorthairs to sleek purebreds to regal big cats, these beloved animals are captured in vibrant detail to illustrate their expansive range of textures, colors, sizes, and behaviors—and don’t forget the toe beans.

Feline contains more than 170 photographs, including information about different breeds, their evolution, and why they’ve captured our hearts and imaginations for millennia. “Flach explores this deep, sometimes one-sided but always enduring bond, revealing the many identities of cats—from their sacred status in ancient cultures to their viral superstardom in the digital age,” the publisher says.

Slated for release on October 21, you can pre-order Feline on Bookshop. See more of Flach’s work on his website, and follow updates on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Vibrant Portraits in Tim Flach’s ‘Feline’ Celebrate Our Enduring Love for Cats appeared first on Colossal.

In the fall of 2022, The Kansas City Defender published a short, urgent video: a serial killer was targeting Black women along the Prospect Avenue Corridor. 

We had spent weeks speaking with community members and local leaders who were searching for missing women in the area. To them, and to anyone on the ground, it was clear something was deeply wrong. A crisis was unfolding, and no one in power was helping.

So we amplified what the community already knew: more and more Black women were disappearing in Kansas City, and there was growing fear that a predator was involved.

The video went viral within hours, generating millions of views and garnering national attention. 

But instead of investigating these concerns, local white media turned to the Kansas City Police Department to verify the story. 

KCPD dismissed the claims as “completely unfounded.”

White news outlets echoed the police response, labeling our reporting baseless rumors that lacked “evidence” and effectively silencing the urgency of what Black residents were trying to raise the alarm about.

Then everything changed. 

Less than a month later, 22-year-old TJ broke free from Timothy Haslett Jr.’s home in Excelsior Springs, a small city about 30 miles northeast of Kansas City. A heavy metal collar was locked around her neck. She said she had been abducted from Prospect Avenue, held for over a month, and that she wasn’t the only one.

What TJ endured was horrific. But her story wasn’t an isolated horror. It was the product of overlapping failures by police, courts, media, and the public that too often looks the other way when Black women go missing.

The numbers make this clear.

On September 11, 44 people were actively missing in Kansas City. The weight of that tragedy falls disproportionately on Black residents, who make up only about 27% of the city’s population, yet account for 55% of open cases and 57% of the 778 people reported missing since February. That’s over double Black people’s share of the population.

In this one snapshot, Black residents are almost four times more likely to be reported missing than white residents, and just over three times more likely to remain actively missing. 

Black women, who make up just 14% of Kansas City’s population, represent 32% of reported cases and 22% of active cases. Since February, Black women have been 3.5 times more likely to be reported missing than white women. Black women are also more than twice as likely to be missing today.

TJ’s story is part of a larger pattern. And like too many other cases involving Black women, it faded quickly from the headlines.

But we never stopped following the story.

Our Investigation Continues

For nearly three years, we’ve been sitting in courtrooms, combing through public records, walking neighborhoods, and talking with the people most impacted by an epidemic that rarely makes headlines: Black women disappearing in plain sight.

Vaughan Harrison, creator of the Fountain City Files podcast, began investigating Haslett’s case in 2022, building timelines, tracking court proceedings, and archiving the slow movement of the legal system. 

Mili Mansaray, senior editor at The Defender, was reporting on missing Black people for The Beacon KC—compiling data and speaking with families, survivors, and community members who’ve been ignored for years.

So while national attention faded, we stayed with the story. And what we found was deeper, darker, and more widespread than we imagined.

Now, we’re joining forces with The Excelsior Citizen, local organizers, and those most directly impacted to build a project that exposes the systems allowing this violence to go unacknowledged, unpunished, and often unspoken.

This work will culminate in the launch of Fountain City Files: Vanishing Point, a long-form investigative series and podcast that explores the crisis of missing Black women in Kansas City and the Midwest. This series will center the voices of survivors, families, and communities pushing back against systemic neglect.

We’ll also publish articles, host listening sessions, and launch a campaign to support victims and their families.

To begin, we’re releasing an interactive timeline that maps the key events surrounding the Haslett case, local disappearances, and the institutional failures that connect them. It will grow as our investigation unfolds.

Where We Go From Here

As Haslett’s trial begins on December 1, TJ—the woman who survived him—is still trying to rebuild her life. And she’s not alone.

This is not just the story of one man. It’s the story of a system that allowed him to exist.

And it is not about one woman, but instead a culture that devalues Black women. A legal process that delays or prevents justice. A public safety model that waits until harm is irreversible. 

But this story is also about community, resistance, and the people fighting every day to bring their loved ones home and keep their neighborhoods safe.

This is just our first installment in an ongoing series. There’s more to come in the lead-up to Haslett’s trial.

If you’ve lost someone, know something, or want to share your story—we’re listening.

Please submit tips and testimonies here or email info@fountaincityfiles.com

The post Black Women Are Still Missing. We Haven’t Forgotten. appeared first on The Kansas City Defender.

Our bookshelves have always had a story to tell. The wood was used in an Iowa warehouse for years, giving it the extra character you can’t find at Home Depot. Kate’s dad hauled those boards 200 miles so we could save money furnishing the store. We pulled dozens of nails out of each 12-ft board, sanding them down to build our bookshelves in the driveway on nights and weekends.

18 months later, I guess they’ve earned another story to tell.

Photo credit Mike Frizzell, Johnson County Post.

About the Fire

In the early morning of August 14, an electrical fire started at The Torreador restaurant next door. Luckily, a patrolman drove past shortly after, saw the smoke and fire, and called the fire department. They were able to put the fire out quickly, saving our building that has stood since the 1950’s.

A fire hose puts out a lot of water, though, and much of it ended up in our bookstore. We also share a wall with the restaurant, so everything inside our store was layered with soot and ash from the fire. Our inventory was ruined and toxic smoke fumes worked their way into our personal belongings and electronics. The firefighters had to bust through our front and back doors to quell the fire.

Shocking News

I learned about the fire when a police officer banged our door at 5:30am. Not a great feeling – you know that.

Somebody is dead, I thought.

“Does Katie live here?”

I looked over to see if her car was in the drive. Kate’s not dead, I thought, my mind was swirling. She was just inside.

“Does she work at that bookstore?”

“Yes, we own the bookstore.”

That’s how I learned what had happened.

I went inside to wake Kate and tell her there was a fire at the store, knowing exactly how much of our life – financially, emotionally, and physically – had been invested into that place. She drove over right away, in the dark. I stayed to get our girls ready for school.

What have we been up to?

We’ve been closed since then. It’s been 4 weeks now.

Week 1 - We waited for the building to be inspected and, after a few days, learned we could return, but that we should take precautions spending time in the toxic fumes. We got approval to turn our power back on. We took our most valuable things home to be cleaned and stored safely: gifts from friends and family, books and posters autographed by authors, vinyl records inherited from my dad when he passed, dozens of plants, and drawings by all of our kids.

Week 2 - We had to clean out the inventory and equipment, disposing of everything that couldn’t be salvaged – literally undoing the work we’d done for the past 2 years. At home in our spare room, Laramie began storing inventory and preparing for weekend popups. My brother, Blake, spent hours in the backyard wiping plants clean by hand.

Weeks 3 & 4 - Everything from the store is now back at our house – filling the garage, driveway, and back patio (I keep imagining our neighbors singing this song to poke fun). We are slowly getting things cleaned and ready to use again, with the help of several people who have generously offered their time, skills, or garages for storage. That’s one of the bright spots – so many people have pitched in, and most of them are people we only met because we opened this bookstore. Your world opens up quite a bit when you put yourself out there.

We are still receiving new book shipments, and on August 23rd we hosted our first outdoor popup. We can’t go inside the building, but our mission is to “Share the Joy of Books” and we are sharing the joy of books. So far, we’ve had two Saturday pop-ups and plan to set up every Saturday until we reopen.

What's next?

Everyone’s first question is, “Are you going to be able to reopen?”

Hell yes, we are going to reopen. We want this store to be around for the next 40 years. Even if we did call it quits, I’m not sure what we would do next. We built all of this intending for our kids to learn how to work hard at something and to get to know their neighbors. We want them to grow up here and maybe take over someday. How do you decide what replaces that?

Hell yes, we are going to reopen. We want this store to be around for the next 40 years.

We don’t have an exact timeline because there are several parties involved (landlord, insurance, etc), but we are starting repairs next week. It’s important to us that we open before the holidays, so that is the main goal.

To get back open, our building must be cleaned and the fumes mitigated, drywall and flooring needs replaced (checkered floors, of course), we need new front and back doors, the ceiling in our storage room needs repaired, and I’m probably missing quite a few items on the checklist.

But we are not afraid of hard work, and we will figure out how to get it done.

Photo credit Morgan Weber

We'll be back.

The first time we did this, we didn’t know if it would even work. We didn’t know if anyone would show up or care about our little bookstore. We didn’t know if we would be able to support our family from this or if everyone else was right when they said “You can’t compete with Amazon.”

But we've learned a lot, and things will fall into place faster than they did two years ago. This time, we know what kinds of books our neighbors love. We’ve made wonderful new friends who are waiting (very impatiently!) to help us put the shop back together. This time, we have a wonderful staff who will help stock shelves and be there to say “hello” at our grand re-opening.

These bookshelves will keep telling their story and we will see you soon, neighbor.

---

Justin is co-owner and "marketing guy" at Monstera's. Follow his work on Instagram at @justinwieners and @hotdogdesignstudio. You can usually find him dropping off packages, pricing old books, or chatting behind the counter with neighbors on Saturdays.

In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting, some political figures are threatening a crackdown on free speech - a cause Kirk claimed to fight for. Members of Congress, the State Department, and President Donald Trump have all attacked people who celebrated Kirk's death online or criticized him while he was alive, in some cases saying they'll use the government's authority to punish statements almost certainly protected by the First Amendment.

While it remains unclear who killed Kirk or why at a college campus in Utah Wednesday, Republican political figures all the way up to Trump have threatened retaliation against Dem …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Twenty four is after the fall

It was clear fairly immediately that the political goal of the attacks on September 11th was to undermine the American empire. Sitting here less than a quarter-century later under authoritarian rule, with the rule of law in America in tatters, tanks in the streets, political violence becoming routine, and the country’s stature permanently (at least for my lifetime) diminished, it would seem that we could put up a banner saying “Mission Accomplished”.

There was so much to grieve for on the day. All these years later, there is so much more grief. As I noted last year, the reality of the actual day has fully faded into mythology; it’s hard to recognize the version of the story that’s repeated under the pretense of “never forget” in comparison to anything any of us actually remember from the time.

But worse, the hope and even optimism that many of us had about some sense of unity, of collective purpose, arising from the moment has given rise to the revelation of the darkest impulses that anyone could attribute to America. I still don’t believe it’s most people, just the ones who have seized power, and those who are willing or complacent enough to enable them, but it’s enough that the United States became in character more or less exactly what Bin Laden said we were.

Despite all this, New York City is still the New York that permanently became a part of my heart that day. We will embrace the young Muslim man who will, inshallah, be our mayor soon. We will hold the line on remembering that day as it actually was, and caring for each other now as we did then. If Manhattan has to be a figurative island as much as a literal one, then that’s what it was always born to be.

As I write this, I’m walking around our neighborhood surrounded by people who are both adults and without any memories of being in NYC on that day. I feel like I have a secret that is terrible and a little bit beautiful that could reveal the truth of this place to them. But also I hope they take this tragedy and wreckage that they’ve been given right now and make something beautiful for each other.

In Previous Years

Last year, 23: What was 9/11?:

The majority of people in the world were either not born, or not old enough to be aware of what was going on, and then many who would recall are either gone or their memories have faded. But I was in New York City on September 11, 2001, and I can say definitively: The constructed cultural narrative around the day bears almost no resemblance to the actual lived experience of anyone I know who was here that day. So maybe it’s worth telling a little bit of what I actually saw.

Two years ago, "It's unrecognizable":

[M]aybe I keep coming back because I am hoping that others might still recognize the little glimpses of humanity that I saw on the day of the attacks, and that I saw in abundance, in New York City, in the days that follow. It wasn't a myth, it wasn't just wishful thinking, there really was kindness and care in this place that I love so much. I don't think those who tell the loudest stories today would even recognize it.

Three years ago, "There Is Nothing To Remember"

So it's clear that the events of that day have fully passed into myth, useful only as rhetoric in a culture war, or as justifications for violence. Nothing epitomizes this more than the fact that, while the memory has faded in culture broadly, it's only brought to the fore in situations like those where most New Yorkers would be targeted.

Four years ago, "Twenty is a Myth":

I can't change how society overall sees this event. To my eternal regret, I couldn't change how we responded in any meaningful way. But I did get to make personal changes, permanently and for the better, and the loss and grief of that day does still motivate me to try to honor the moment by pushing for justice, and care, and an earnest engagement with the world.

Five years ago, Nineteen is When They Forgot

I do have the experience of having seen this city bounce back from unimaginable pain before. I have seen us respond to attacks on our public life by rebuilding and reimagining public space. I have seen us grieve our losses and rally behind those who cared for those injured, and preserve space in our cultural memory for their pain and sacrifice. By no means have we done enough for all those lost, but it is absolutely true that we can rebuild. We’ve done it before.

Six years ago, Eighteen is History

There are ritualized remembrances, largely led by those who weren't  there, those who mostly hate the values that New York City embodies. The  sharpest memories are of the goals of those who masterminded the  attacks. It's easy enough to remember what they wanted, since they  accomplished all their objectives and we live in the world they sought  to create. The empire has been permanently diminished. Never Forget.

In 2018, Seventeen is (Almost) Just Another Day

I spent so many years thinking “I can’t go there” that it caught me completely off guard to realize that going there is now routine. Maybe the most charitable way to look at it is resiliency, or that I’m seeing things through the eyes of my child who’s never known any reality but the present one. I'd spent a lot of time wishing that we hadn't been so overwhelmed with response to that day, so much that I hadn''t considered what it would be like when the day passed for so many people with barely a notice at all.

In 2017, Sixteen is Letting Go Again

So, like ten years ago, I’m letting go. Trying not to project my feelings onto this anniversary, just quietly remembering that morning and how it felt. My son asked me a couple of months ago, “I heard there was another World Trade Center before this one?” and I had to find a version of the story that I could share with him. In this telling, losing those towers was unimaginably sad and showed that there are incredibly hurtful people in the world, but there are still so many good people, and they can make wonderful things together.

In 2016 Fifteen is the Past:

I don’t dismiss or deny that so much has gone so wrong in the response and the reaction that our culture has had since the attacks, but I will not forget or diminish the pure openheartedness I witnessed that day. And I will not let the cynicism or paranoia of others draw me in to join them.

What I’ve realized, simply, is that 9/11 is in the past now.

In 2015, Fourteen is Remembering:

For the first time, I clearly felt like I had put the attacks firmly in the past. They have loosened their grip on me. I don’t avoid going downtown, or take circuitous routes to avoid seeing where the towers once stood. I can even imagine deliberately visiting the area to see the new train station.

In 2014, Thirteen is Understanding:

There’s no part of that day that one should ever have to explain to a child, but I realized for the first time this year that, when the time comes, I’ll be ready. Enough time has passed that I could recite the facts, without simply dissolving into a puddle of my own unresolved questions. I look back at past years, at my own observances of this anniversary, and see how I veered from crushingly sad to fiercely angry to tentatively optimistic, and in each of those moments I was living in one part of what I felt. Maybe I’m ready to see this thing in a bigger picture, or at least from a perspective outside of just myself.

From 2013, Twelve is Trying:

I thought in 2001 that some beautiful things could come out of that worst of days, and sure enough, that optimism has often been rewarded. There are boundless examples of kindness and generosity in the worst of circumstances that justify the hope I had for people’s basic decency back then, even if initially my hope was based only on faith and not fact.

But there is also fatigue. The inevitable fading of outrage and emotional devastation into an overworked rhetorical reference point leaves me exhausted. The decay of a brief, profound moment of unity and reflection into a cheap device to be used to prop up arguments about the ordinary, the everyday and the mundane makes me weary. I’m tired from the effort to protect the fragile memory of something horrific and hopeful that taught me about people at their very best and at their very, very worst.

In 2012, Eleven is What We Make:

These are the gifts our children, or all children, give us every day in a million different ways. But they’re also the gifts we give ourselves when we make something meaningful and beautiful. The new World Trade Center buildings are beautiful, in a way that the old ones never were, and in a way that’ll make our fretting over their exorbitant cost seem short-sighted in the decades to come. More importantly, they exist. We made them, together. We raised them in the past eleven years just as surely as we’ve raised our children, with squabbles and mistakes and false starts and slow, inexorable progress toward something beautiful.

In 2011 for the 10th anniversary, Ten is Love and Everything After:

I don’t have any profound insights or political commentary to offer that others haven’t already articulated first and better. All that I have is my experience of knowing what it mean to be in New York City then. And from that experience, the biggest lesson I have taken is that I have the obligation to be a kinder man, a more thoughtful man, and someone who lives with as much passion and sincerity as possible. Those are the lessons that I’ll tell my son some day in the distant future, and they’re the ones I want to remember now.

In 2010, Nine is New New York:

[T]his is, in many ways, a golden era in the entire history of New York City. Over the four hundred years it’s taken for this city to evolve into its current form, there’s never been a better time to walk down the street. Crime is low, without us having sacrificed our personality or passion to get there. We’ve invested in making our sidewalks more walkable, our streets more accommodating of the bikes and buses and taxis that convey us around our town. There’s never been a more vibrant scene in the arts, music or fashion here. And in less than half a decade, the public park where I got married went from a place where I often felt uncomfortable at noontime to one that I wanted to bring together my closest friends and family on the best day of my life. We still struggle with radical inequality, but more people interact with people from broadly different social classes and cultures every day in New York than any other place in America, and possibly than in any other city in the world.

And all of this happened, by choice, in the years since the attacks.

In 2009, Eight Is Starting Over:

[T]his year, I am much more at peace. It may be that, finally, we’ve been called on by our leadership to mark this day by being of service to our communities, our country, and our fellow humans. I’ve been trying of late to do exactly that. And I’ve had a bit of a realization about how my own life was changed by that day.

Speaking to my mother last week, I offhandedly mentioned how almost all of my friends and acquaintances, my entire career and my accomplishments, my ambitions and hopes have all been born since September 11, 2001. If you’ll pardon the geeky reference, it’s as if my life was rebooted that day and in the short period afterwards. While I have a handful of lifelong friends with whom I’ve stayed in touch, most of the people I’m closest to are those who were with me on the day of the attacks or shortly thereafter, and the goals I have for myself are those which I formed in the next days and weeks. i don’t think it’s coincidence that I was introduced to my wife while the wreckage at the site of the towers was still smoldering, or that I resolved to have my life’s work amount to something meaningful while my beloved city was still papered with signs mourning the missing.

In 2008, Seven Is Angry:

Finally getting angry myself, I realize that nobody has more right to claim authority over the legacy of the attacks than the people of New York. And yet, I don’t see survivors of the attacks downtown claiming the exclusive right to represent the noble ambition of Never Forgetting. I’m not saying that people never mention the attacks here in New York, but there’s a genuine awareness that, if you use the attacks as justification for your position, the person you’re addressing may well have lost more than you that day. As I write this, I know that parked out front is the car of a woman who works in my neighborhood. Her car has a simple but striking memorial on it, listing her mother’s name, date of birth, and the date 9/11/2001.

In 2007, Six Is Letting Go:

On the afternoon of September 11th, 2001, and especially on September 12th, I wasn’t only sad. I was also hopeful. I wanted to believe that we wouldn’t just Never Forget that we would also Always Remember. People were already insisting that we’d put aside our differences and come together, and maybe the part that I’m most bittersweet and wistful about was that I really believed it. I’d turned 26 years old just a few days before the attacks, and I realize in retrospect that maybe that moment, as I eased from my mid-twenties to my late twenties, was the last time I’d be unabashedly optimistic about something, even amidst all the sorrow.

In 2006, After Five Years, Failure:

[O]ne of the strongest feelings I came away with on the day of the attacks was a feeling of some kind of hope. Being in New York that day really showed me the best that people can be. As much as it’s become cliché now, there’s simply no other way to describe a display that profound. It was truly a case of people showing their very best nature.

We seem to have let the hope of that day go, though.

In 2005, Four Years:

I saw people who hated New York City, or at least didn’t care very much about it, trying to act as if they were extremely invested in recovering from the attacks, or opining about the causes or effects of the attacks. And to me, my memory of the attacks and, especially, the days afterward had nothing to do with the geopolitics of the situation. They were about a real human tragedy, and about the people who were there and affected, and about everything but placing blame and pointing fingers. It felt thoughtless for everyone to offer their response in a framework that didn’t honor the people who were actually going through the event.

In 2004, Thinking Of You:

I don’t know if it’s distance, or just the passing of time, but I notice how muted the sorrow is. There’s a passivity, a lack of passion to the observances. I knew it would come, in the same way that a friend told me quite presciently that day back in 2001 that “this is all going to be political debates someday” and, well, someday’s already here.

In 2003, Two Years:

I spent a lot of time, too much time, resenting people who were visiting our city, and especially the site of the attacks, these past two years. I’ve been so protective, I didn’t want them to come and get their picture taken like it was Cinderella’s Castle or something. I’m trying really hard not to be so angry about that these days. I found that being angry kept me from doing the productive and important things that really mattered, and kept me from living a life that I know I’m lucky to have.

In 2002, I wrote On Being An American:

[I]n those first weeks, I thought a lot about what it is to be American. That a lot of people outside of New York City might not even recognize their own country if they came to visit. The America that was attacked a year ago was an America where people are as likely to have been born outside the borders of the U.S. as not. Where most of the residents speak another language in addition to English. Where the soundtrack is, yes, jazz and blues and rock and roll, but also hip hop and salsa and merengue. New York has always been where the first fine threads of new cultures work their way into the fabric of America, and the city the bore the brunt of those attacks last September reflected that ideal to its fullest.

In 2001, Thank You:

I am physically fine, as are all my family members and immediate friends. I’ve been watching the footage all morning, I can’t believe I watched the World Trade Center collapse…

I’ve been sitting here this whole morning, choking back tears… this is just too much, too big. I can see the smoke and ash from the street here. I have friends of friends who work there, I was just there myself the day before yesterday. I can’t process this all. I don’t want to.