The Day of the Ashes

 

By Apple Gomez Martinez

 

 

“They tried to bury us…

They didn’t know we were seeds.”

I woke up that morning with a strange restlessness humming in my head, a quiet vibration that told me something in my life needed to shift. It was just a relentless feeling that things needed to change. I was two months pregnant with my second child, Hannah Bella, and every sunrise came with the same unwelcome companion. Morning sickness had become a kind of thief, stealing my energy, my motivation, my sense of self. Most days, all I wanted was to lie in bed and wait for the nausea to pass.

Arela, two months away from her second birthday, sat in her high chair picking at her Cheerios one by one, lost in her own tiny universe. She was obsessed with Blue’s Clues and Dora the Explorer, her little voice echoing their songs and catchphrases with such innocence so much that I found myself repeating, “Swiper no Swipy..”

But that day, something inside me rebelled. I couldn’t bear the repetition in my life, the cartoons, the couch, the stale routine. I wanted air. I wanted movement. I wanted to feel alive again, even if just for a moment. So I decided we would go outside, breathe fresh air, and let the television rest for once.

While I gathered our things, her tiny shoes, my purse, the snacks I always carried, I turned on the radio for background noise. Music filled the room for a moment, familiar and comforting, and then it cut out abruptly. A voice replaced it, urgent and trembling at the edges.

“The World Trade Center has been hit by an airplane.”

Here is a more evocative, more emotional, more personal expansion of your passage. I kept your meaning intact and deepened the emotional layers, the imagery, and the psychological weight. No dashes, as you prefer.

I froze. A shock ran through me, sharp and electric, the kind that makes your whole body go still before your mind can understand why. I knew that building. Everyone knew that building. It was not just part of New York City, it was the heartbeat of the City, a landmark stitched into our collective imagination. It appeared again and again in the sweeping skyline shots of the shows we loved, the ones that made New York feel familiar even if we had never walked its streets. Friends, Seinfeld, Sex and the City, all of them framed the Twin Towers as steady guardians watching over the island. They anchored the horizon with a kind of imposing confidence, a symbol of the great things America had accomplished, a reminder of ambition and possibility.

To us, they were beautiful. To us, they meant progress and pride. To us, they were part of the story of who we believed we were.

But for other people in other places, those same buildings might have carried a different meaning. In their minds, the towers could have represented something excessive, something boastful, something that confirmed their darkest beliefs about America. Maybe they saw arrogance instead of aspiration. Maybe they saw power instead of promise. Maybe they saw a symbol of the ugly American, a caricature of greed and dominance that made them hate us enough to target so many innocent lives for destruction.

It is unsettling to realize that the same image can hold two truths at once. For us, the towers were a beacon. For them, they were a provocation. And on that morning, the world collided in the most violent way imaginable, revealing how differently we can be seen by eyes that do not know us, do not understand us, and do not wish to.

I rushed to turn on the TV. The screen flickered, and there it was, the replay of the first plane crashing into the tower. It didn’t look real. It felt like watching a movie, something impossible, something that shouldn’t exist in the world. My first thought was heartbreak for the people on that plane, for the workers inside the building, for the families who had no idea their lives had just been torn apart. A terrible accident, I told myself. A tragedy.

I sat down, wanting to understand, wanting someone to explain how such a thing could happen on a clear September morning.

And then, on live television, another plane appeared.

It was heading straight toward the second tower.

My eyes widened, filling with tears before my mind could catch up. The plane crashed into the building in real time, right before my eyes, and in that instant the truth settled deeply and irrevocably.

This was no accident.

The fabric of the universe tore in that specific spot at ground zero. Something enormous and terrifying had begun, something that would divide our lives into “before” and “after.”

News poured in like a flood. Another plane had hit the Pentagon. Another was headed toward the White House. The anchors’ voices were full of alarm and disbelief. The country felt suddenly fragile, exposed, under attack in a way we had never imagined. An unprecedented moment in the history of the United States.

I was thousands of miles away in Miami, but distance did not matter. The moment the second tower fell, something inside me broke open. I spent the rest of the day crying, unable to stop, unable to look away, unable to make sense of what I was seeing. The grief of a city I barely knew was in me as if it were my own. The fear in the people I had never met became my fear. Their terror traveled through the television and lodged itself in my chest. It felt as if the entire nation was holding its breath, watching itself shatter into pieces in real time.

We saw too much. More than any heart should ever have to see. More than any heart should ever have to feel. The images were relentless, each one leaving an enduring memory, leaving a mark that would never fade. It was as if the whole country was grieving together, millions of us connected by shock and sorrow, all of us changed in an instant.

We saw them, people trapped in the towers waving cloths from shattered windows, clinging to hope against hope that someone, somehow, would reach them, but in truth their lives were over.

People choosing to jump choosing the sky and the ability to at least feel weightless one last time, over smoke and fire. Their final moments captured by cameras that would replay them endlessly. Firefighters and police running into the burning buildings, climbing stairwells that would become their graves, choosing courage over survival because saving others was their calling. Families standing outside with photographs of loved ones, hoping against hope, begging the world to help them find someone who would never come back.

We heard the stories of passengers who realized they were living their last minutes and chose bravery anyway. Flight attendants who calmly explained what was happening so that other planes could be grounded, saving countless lives. Ordinary people who became heroes in seconds, legends of the fall, living now in through the stories of those who witnessed them.

The fatalities were staggering. The heroism was immeasurable.

The generation that came after has only heard the stories and seen the replays every year when we commemorate the tragedy, but somehow they can feel the pain too, the echo of that morning still vibrates through time.

For me, it was the end of an age of innocence. Even though I knew evil existed and previous generations had endured unspeakable cruelty, those horrors felt distant, like scary stories belonging to another era. I believed we lived in a kinder, gentler world. I believed the evils of the past had dissolved.

But that morning shattered that illusion.

Evil had come too close. It had violated us in our own home. The years that followed became an era of rediscovering ourselves, of understanding that vigilance was not paranoia but necessity. Life has never been the same.

And we will never, ever forget!

The Shield Maiden: A Lesson from the Vikings

 

“There is no force more powerful than a woman determined to rise.” 

~ W.E.B. Du Bois

Image: Lagertha, Legendary Shield Maiden

I recently fell headfirst into Vikings, the TV series that resurrects the ancient Norse world in all its brutal beauty. It’s a world of longships slicing through steel‑cold oceans, of warriors chasing glory across distant horizons, of people who lived with a ferocity that feels almost otherworldly. These men and women were not polished heroes. They were fierce, flawed, and often terrifying — raiders, explorers, survivors who carved their existence out of raw earth and roaring waves.

And yet, amid all the blood and battle, something struck me deeper than anything else.The women. The Shield Maidens.Women who stood not behind their men, but beside them. Women who carried swords, commanded households, owned land, made decisions, and  shaped destinies. They fought shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall, but they also loved with a devotion that could steady a storm. They raised children in a world carved from ice and iron. They endured childbirth without medicine, heartbreak without comfort, and loss without the luxury of falling apart.

These women stitched wounds, buried their dead, rebuilt their homes, and still found the strength to lift a blade when danger came. They tore down obstacles with the same hands that braided their daughters’ hair. They survived winters that swallowed entire villages. They died courageously, not because they sought death, but because they refused to surrender their dignity, their families, or their freedom.

They were not rare exceptions to their culture; they were reflections of it. In this world, women were not ornamental. They were essential. They were respected. They were powerful.

In a world that has so often been determined to see women as expendable, I never expected to find such fierce equality in an ancient culture. The Shield Maiden became, for me, a symbol of possibility — a reminder that history is full of women who lived boldly, fiercely, unapologetically.

And I began to wonder:

What if I took that history and learned from it?
What if I let it ignite something inside me — a fire strong enough to burn away every insecurity I’ve ever carried about being a woman?

What if I strengthened my mind, body, and spirit until courage became my instinct instead of fear?
What if I finally silenced the small, relentless voice that whispers I’m not enough?
What if I awakened the Shield Maiden in me?

Since the dawn of humanity, women have been treated as second‑class citizens, when in truth we possess extraordinary power. We are life‑givers and healers. We are mothers, nurturers, creators of comfort and pleasure, providers of sustenance, the pulse and breath of the world. So why do we allow the stones thrown at us to land? Why do we sometimes lift those stones ourselves?

We can do more than endure.
We can rise with the force of a storm.
We can show our strength — beginning with the inner demon perched on our shoulder, the one that insists we are not enough.

Every choice we make becomes a line in the story we write for ourselves in the book of life. And at any moment, we have the power to turn the page and begin again.

When we decide to stop letting life simply happen to us — when we choose to become warriors in our own lives — the entire narrative transforms into something much more powerful.

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⚔️ The Dawn of the Unquiet Woman

In the hush before sunrise, when the world is still deciding what it will become, a woman rises. Not with noise, but with intention. She ties her hair back in preparation for the day. She breathes in the morning air for strength.

And she whispers to herself:

“Today, I will make history.”

Not someday.
Not when life is easier.
Not when she feels ready.
But now.

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🌊 The Woman Who Walks Her Own Shoreline

There was once a Viking woman who stood at the edge of the sea, watching the horizon shimmer with possibility. She did not wait for permission to explore it. She stepped into her longship and carved her path across the waves.

Her spirit lives on in the modern woman who dares to choose her own direction.

She is the woman who leaves a job that dims her light.
The woman who starts a business with trembling hands but a steady heart.
The woman who says, “This life is mine to shape.”

She fills her days with history by refusing to drift.
She is the master and comander of the ship!

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🔥 The Courage of the Steadfast Warrior

Not all battles are fought with swords. Some are fought in boardrooms, classrooms, kitchens, and mirrors. Some are fought in silence, where no one sees the shaking hands or the racing heart.

But Viking women knew that courage was not the absence of fear — it was the decision to move anyway.

So does the woman who speaks up in a room that wasn’t built for her voice.
The woman who sets boundaries that protect her peace.
The woman who chooses healing over bitterness, growth over comfort, truth over approval.

She fills her days with history by standing her ground.
She becomes her own shield and her own protector.

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🌙 The Woman Who Lifts Others Into the Light

In Viking communities, women were the keepers of stories — the ones who preserved the past and shaped the future. They understood that a legacy is not built alone.

That spirit lives in the woman who reaches her hand back as she climbs to help someone survive.
Who mentors those who are willing to learn.
Who encourages those on the edge of hopelessness.
Who celebrates another woman’s rise as if it were her own.

She fills her days with history by weaving strength into the lives around her.
She becomes a torchbearer who lights the way so that others don't get lost.

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✨ Your Saga Is Still Being Written

To fill your days with history is not to chase perfection.
It is to live and be awake to all the possibilities.
To choose boldly, intuitively, and wisely.
To honor the fire within you — the same fire that burned in the women who crossed seas, built cites, and shaped worlds.

You carry their legacy in your in your soul, in your voice, in the power of your everyday choices.

So step into your day with intention.
Step into your life with courage.
Step into your story knowing this truth:

You are not simply living history.
You are making it.
Every single day.

🛡️ A Salutation to the Modern Shield Maidens

To all the women who rise each morning to face battles the world will never fully see —
the mothers, the leaders, the healers, the dreamers, the builders, the survivors —
this is for you.

To the women who fight for their families, their futures, their sanity, their joy.
To the women who carry burdens in silence and victories with grace.
To the women who refuse to bow, who refuse to break, who refuse to disappear.

To the women who speak truth in rooms that were never designed to hear them.
To the women who walk away from what wounds them and walk toward what strengthens them.
To the women who rebuild themselves after every storm, every heartbreak, every loss.

To the women who lift others as they climb.
To the women who choose courage over comfort.
To the women who are rewriting their stories one brave choice at a time.

You are the Shield Maidens of this age —
fierce in spirit, unshakable in purpose, unstoppable in becoming who your meant to be.

May your sword stay sharp,
your heart stay open,
and your fire never dim.

This world is better because you are here and you rise!!