Today is the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001. Everyone I know remembers exactly where they were the moment the planes hit the towers and the world seem to change unalterably, and the heart-breaking days that followed.

This evening at dusk, I’ll look toward the the two powerful beams of light streaming 4 miles into the sky, echoing the shape of the towers that once stood there, honoring those that were killed and the city’s remarkable spirit.

I remember how the world seemed to join with New York City that day.

The night after the attacks, I received an email from a friend in Italy. It was short, describing the shock she felt upon watching the towers fall on TV, from the small town in Tuscany where she was living. She told me of running into a baker we knew there who was carrying on his family’s generations-long business of bread baking and beloved for his astonishing tenor and arias sung acapella. Debbiamo comabattere con la belleza he said as he and Peggy talked about the change in life that had been wrought in a moment.

We must fight back with beauty.