I live just a few miles from a seaside hill that overlooks Sandy Hook Bay and, in the distance, Staten Island, the Verrazano Bridge, Brooklyn and Manhattan. For years, I've used the scientific process of looking at how clear the World Trade Center towers appear to judge the level of haze and smog in the area.

Just last week, on my birthday, actually, my sister and my friend Mia and I went to the beach at Sandy Hook, driving all the way out to one of the last beaches on the five-mile long peninsula, a wide, isolated stretch of sand with a view of Manhattan and Long Island. It was a particularly clear day, one so clear that not only was the Manhattan skyline sharp and brilliant, but a bridge out near Floyd Bennett Field on Long Island was clearer than I've ever seen it, the control tower at JFK Airport was easily discernable, and looking out across the ocean to the horizon, buildings peaked above the horizon line -- almost as if out of the water -- where I'd never seen them before. The air was so clear that parts of Long Island were visible on the Jersey Shore that had never been seen before, at least not by me.

I walked back to the car to get my camera, wanting to take pictures of the view. I'd taken plenty of New York City photos before, plenty of pictures from Sandy Hook and the Highlands of the skyline -- the World Trade Center, Empire State Building, Coney Island and all. But I felt the need to make the long walk back across the sand to the car to get my camera. I took a few pictures, putting random sunbathers in the foreground, and then packed up my camera to lay in the sand myself.

I pulled out those pictures again yesterday to look at it as it was.

And so far, I haven't been able to bring myself to drive out to look at it as it is now. Something's missing, I know that. I just don't want to see it with my own eyes yet. So far, it's still not real, still hasn't sunk in yet. I don't want it to yet. I'll get up there sometime soon, and I'll stand along the cliff road looking out at the lights and see the black void of lower Manhattan and I'll listen to the quiet of New Jersey and know that the same eerie quiet hovers over New York City and up there it's really weird.