billige rolex

I was riding the subway in Manhattan on Monday morning, about 36 hours after a small explosion at 23rd Street near Sixth Avenue injured 29 people and caused damage in the area. The train I was on would take me about a block from the explosion and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be a ghost town, a war zone, a circus, or something else? During my ride I observed the commuters around me and realized something: this was pretty much your standard 9:30 a.m. subway crowd and we were all “New York Tough.”

I was in Manhattan on 9/11 — actually downtown outside of the courthouse when the first jet hit the World Trade Center. The days that followed were filled with fear, anger, and resoluteness, but also the feeling of community. We were all together in those days and months following 9/11 in a way that I had never experienced before and rarely have since.

Community is important. I grew up in a small town, a place where I knew most of the people in my immediate vicinity. Even though New York is a huge city, I still feel a sense of community in my neighborhood. I know many people who live in my building, as well as those who I bump into on a regular basis: residents in nearby buildings, local shopkeepers, and people from our local community center.

The ride on the subway Monday morning was not the same as what I experienced after 9/11 and yet there was a sense that life must go on despite the bombing and that, whatever happened, we were in this thing together. After the explosion Saturday night, I posted a message on Facebook letting my friends and family know that my wife and I were okay. Many of those who read the message live in Ohio, Tennessee, and other states and cities that have never experienced the threat of terrorism first-hand. Many “liked” my post and thanked me for letting them know that we were okay.

Our country today is often described as divided because of politics, class, income, religion, race, and ethnicity. However, challenges such as natural disasters and man-made assaults often bring out the best in us. We are not as different as we may appear to be on the outside. We each have hearts and our blood is all the same color.

When I arrived at my stop this morning, it was raining but everyone seemed to be just a little more tolerant, a little more aware that we should be good to each other. I don’t think someone who builds a bomb and detonates it in a populated area understands this. Clearly, we all react from fear and anger at times, say and do things we don’t mean, and, in a place like New York City with so much diversity, it is astounding that there is not more violence. But there isn’t and I believe most of us get it: it is much more important that we hold on to the community that we have than that we blow it apart for each of our own individual needs. Together we are stronger. We are New York Tough.