Icon of the Day: Twin Towers, I Love You

I did not always care for you. It was when I saw the first plane hit you that I never wanted to be without you. My heart has broken 3,649 times since that day. Once a day since you've been gone.

I have many memories of your majesty. It was as if the beautiful orange and pink sunsets with the restless blue sky still peeking from behind were created just to show you off.

And behind the crispest blue sky there ever was, I saw you crumble.

If I hadn't lived in Mumbai the summer before I wouldn't have recognized the smell of burning flesh that took over from that day and the months after. Smelled like that until the cold December wind carried death and the nightmare away forever, I hoped.

Friends came and went through my loft walking around like zombies as if we'd find our innocence, but it was gone, though only for a short time.

I went to live in Paris in 2002 for a year to mourn. I realized I loved you the first time I saw you, when I was twelve years old. You were so deeply a part of my life.

When I came back, the people of New York did something magnificent. They moved forward. Your symbolism of the beautiful arrogance in man that makes us want to be more than we are, lives on.

In every newborn, spring tulip, or Highline I always feel your presence. In every Gates, Armory Show, or Farmers Market, life is so much sweeter because when I see, it is through your memory.