Ten years ago...

Ten years ago today I was in the middle of the Toronto International Film Festival. I had the festival pass that gave me tickets to watch fifty films in ten days. Five films a day. My first film would be around 9am and the last would play at midnight. I'd race to catch the last subway at 2am, and would be up and out by 8am. Stand in line....watch a film...stand in line...watch a film...it was magnificent.

Saturday September 11th I woke up around 7:30am feeling like a zombie but excited about the sixth day of the festival. I rode the subway down to Yonge and Bloor, most likely stopped for a coffee from a Second Cup and walked the two or three blocks to the Manulife Centre at Bay and Bloor. I took my place in line and soaked up the atmosphere. It was clear and warm, the sky was bright blue and everywhere you looked people talked about movies.

Eventually the line started moving and we made our way into the Varsity Cinema. The lobby was alive. Line ups veered off in all directions. Volunteers answered questions. Movie fans and industry types waited patiently. We made our way into the theatre and our seats. Today I was about to watch World Traveller A film by Bart Freundlich starring Billy Crudup, Julianne Moore and Liane Baliban. A story about a family man who on one random day leaves his family and goes on a personal odyssey across the country. As the theatre filled up, people ate breakfast, drank coffee and water and talked about the films they had watched the day before.

I went to all the festival films alone back then (I didn't know anyone else interested in watching five films a day for ten days straight) so I sat and watched people. I was very very content. Just before the lights went down a member of staff walked up to the front of the theatre and said there were reports of an incident in America. That further details would be available later. And to enjoy the film. People looked curiously at one another as the cinema grew dark and the screen lit up.

When the film ended and the lights came back on people waited. Often they have special guests(actors, filmmakers, producers) who do a question and answer after films at TIFF. Another member of staff walked up to the front of the cinema again and said there had been an incident in America. That man people were reported injured or dead. To remain calm.

The world outside the theatre was chaos.We walked out of the theatre into the lobby of the Varsity cinema. People moved quickly in all directions. I walked out of the Varsity into the Manulife Centre. There was a constant murmur in the air. Many voices talking at once, worried and confused. Volunteers did their best to answer questions. I was confused. I stood and watched people rushing back and forth. Talking on cell phones. I walked over to a volunteer and asked what had happened. There had been a terrorist attack down in the U.S. Forty thousand people were reported dead. I just looked at him. I headed for the escalator and made my way out of the building onto the sidewalk. People were stood around with strange looks on their faces not knowing what to do. I asked an old guy with a beard what had happened. He said there had been some sort of terrorist attack on New York City. He said his name was Richard and asked if I was okay. We talked for a bit. He was a nice man. One of those mid-sixties, world weary, well educated, funny calming types. He helped me get my head around things a little bit.

I overheard someone mention something about people watching a screen down the street. I walked along Bloor to  the corner of Yonge Street and stopped. All the traffic had stopped. The street and sidewalks were full of people stood looking up, like a scene in a science fiction movie. They were starring at a giant screen. I looked up. The giant screen that normally showed commericals and weather updates and news now displayed a shot of downtown New York city. Smoke poured out of the World Trade Center towers. As I watched, bewildered and unbelieving, a plane entered the frame. It was quiet on the street. No one talked. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life. I was dazed. I watched the screen for a long time, horrified and mesmerized.

I made my way back to the Manulife Center, not really knowing what else to do. I found Richard again and told him what I saw. He had seen it too. I don't remember specifically what we talked about then but I know it was big existential tragedy of life type stuff. He was trying to get in touch with his son down in America and I decided I had to get in touch with my family. I found a payphone(I didn't own a cellphone) and called my mom. It became even weirder once I was talking to someone from my own reality, someone familiar. It felt completely inconceivable that this was happening in the mundane world I lived in every day. It was too big of an event.

I walked to the subway and waited on the crowded platform for the next train. The ride home was silent. No one seemed to have anything to say to anybody. I got back to my apartment and sat on the couch. It seemed even more surreal watching it on normal television in my living room. Hearing newscasters reporting all the details. Watching the terrible footage over and over. I called my friend Steven and woke him up. He'd slept through it all. Have you seen the news I asked? No. Put on your television. Why? What happened?

I put my memories of this day in the same folder in my head as my memories of our car crash or our near drowning in Byron Bay. Visceral, and brutally real.  Memories where you are unselfconsciously aware of your own mortality. Memories where you feel oddly alive and aware of being a part of something larger. A part of the collective group that makes up humanity, and this terrible tragic world in which we live.