Gregorian Chanting

On 9/11 I was in Florence, Italy. It was late afternoon and we went to a beautiful church that over looked the river, to hear the monks chant at 5pm. It was the last thing we did in Florence before boarding a train to Milan. We were scheduled to fly home from Milan the following morning, 9/12.
It was on the way back to the hotel after the haunting experience of hearing the chanting echoing through the church, that we heard for the first time about the events that were happening in my home town. And the sound of the monks chanting stayed with those 5 following days as we were glued to CNN for news of our family, friends and our fellow New Yorkers, as they lived a nightmare, that we would never understand the same way as they did.

Mary Perrella