Went down to the World Trade Center site yesterday to hear the names read. I do this every year, now. Strange to think there are already rituals around 9/11. It still seems too immediate for that.

The event hasn't changed form since the first year. At 8:30, music starts. 8:46, the first moment of silence. The mayor makes a short statement, reads a poem. Two readers alternate reading names, a dozen each, the last on each one's list being the person they themselves lost: "And my husband Frank..." Music -- solo instruments mostly, cello, flute, violin -- plays under the reading. The pair of readers is replaced by another pair, and another; three more moments of silence, a statement from the governor and one or two other people, but no speeches; and the names go on and on until everyone's accounted for. It takes three and a half hours.

This year the readers were spouses and partners; last year, siblings; the year before, parents; and the first year, children and grandchildren. I have a regular spot where I stand, on the east side of the site. The weather this year was a little chilly, except in the middle hour when the sun breaks free of the building just north and shines on that stretch of sidewalk before it finds the next building to slip behind. There was a little wind and the day was bright, with a few clouds.

The families, and the FDNY, NYPD, PAPD, and EMS people can go down inside if they want; everyone else rings the site. Some people are there to hear the all names, some are waiting for a particular name. Two latino guys near me came about an hour into the ceremony, waited silently another hour until the readers came to someone named Ortiz. One said "Yeah!" as though this were sporting event and the other looked up into the sky and said, "We still miss you, Papi!" These were the guy's buddies, not his family; the first asked the second where the family was, and he said they were down inside, they'd catch up with them later. Another man had brought a folding stool. He set it up and waited until somewhere in the S's, then stood slowly, picked it up and left. You can't see anything of what's going on down inside -- people laying wreaths and flowers, coming and going -- from the sidewalk, because of how the fence is set back. You stand there an hour, or two, or all three, as the building shadows move across other buildings' faces, as people stand still next to you or walk by, as traffic flows behind you. As the names keep coming.