It's a little hard to know what to say about this date. The other four anniversaries haven't really affected me, because in one way or another I was wrapped up in withstanding my own kind of September attacks.
But "five" is just one of those numbers. And this time around I'm really remembering where I was, who I was with, and (frankly) who I was as this particularly despicable era of history began. None of it is very easy.
Patti Smith played a show at the Hatch Shell a few months later, and she gave some great advice, though it's damned difficult to heed: Remember who you were before 9/11.