Another September 11
What I’m most struck by this year is how long it’s been. The little baby who I came home to hug, who I pushed around the neighborhood under that impossible blue sky, who forced me to turn off the television and focus on my life… he’s now in second grade, and asking me hard questions.
The hearing I was at on the hill was delayed because of the remembrance ceremony, and while we were waiting, people started telling their "where I was" stories. I do think there’s something very powerful about this shared experience, but I’m also glad that my children won’t have these stories to tell.
I do want to make it over to the Pentagon memorial at some point. But not on a day when it’s full of politicians and cameras.
Other’s posts today:
September 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
I remain struck by how distant this seems to those of us on the west coast. I remember where I was (and, our kids are the same age, so I remember holding her close, and not having to answer any questions). But, what was happening was very far away.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Well, to those of you _from_ the west coast, maybe. I was about a thousand miles away from NYC on Sept 11, where I’d been living for most of a decade, but seeing the video of the first tower collapse a few days ago gave me, again, the visceral sense of having to get back to New York immediately. To me, what happened was not far away at all.
I was in the shower when I heard — there were excitable BBC reporters on at the wrong time for NPR, and I’d just understood that no, this wasn’t like the Empire State Building, that it was an attack, and then they yelled that the first tower had gone, and I was still in the shower. It was like looking down and seeing your leg is gone, that gruesome. It was the only time in my life I’ve seriously contemplated joining the military.
It struck me at the time how strongly people here reacted, too. I went to the hospital to give blood and found a waiting room full of angry Iowans. You very seldom see angry Iowans. I mean visibly angry. I’d never before, and have never since, seen a room full of them. I’m still moved by it. After all, of course I’d react that way; it’s my city. But I’d bet half of them had never even been there.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
“those of us on the west coast”
Oops, I really shouldn’t have spoke for any one else on the west coast. We, our family, felt distant. We also heard on NPR, as we woke up in the morning, to the radio, and recognized something was wrong in the sound of the reporter’s voices. But, it felt like it was happening far away, to me.
“You very seldom see angry Iowans. I mean visibly angry. I’d never before, and have never since, seen a room full of them. ”
I think that this — and I didn’t see it, though I can’t say at all whether there was that kind of anger here, that I just didn’t see — explains some of what happened after wards. But, I didn’t feel this way. I felt sad. I remember wanting to remember those who died. I read the profiles in the New York Times, and I tried hard to remember the women, because I could see that they would be forgotten, the people who died. I wanted to respond by rebuliding, by making ourselves immediately whole. I wanted to show *them* that what they had done wouldn’t change us at all: that we would still be America, and all that means to me.
(honestly, if I had been in charge, I would have rebuilt the towers, immediately, while remembering the dead).
September 14th, 2008 at 12:44 am
bj, I don’t remember whether I thought the towers should’ve been rebuilt. I know I thought about it, and that it was obvious no one was going to be able to do anything there for quite a while, because it was an open grave, and dangerous besides. I think in the end the market reality that lower Manhattan was overstocked with office space anyway — for me, that really put paid to it. It’s not like the buildings themselves had been anyone’s favorite, and it seemed right to let New York’s ordinary realities dictate, for the city to be itself.
I didn’t like the twin searchlight show the next year; I thought it was in poor taste and a Washington production. I can’t say I’m a terrific fan of the new tower project, either — again, I don’t know who the tenants are supposed to be, and the whole thing just has too much gesture about it. Also, if that recent buzz about Manhattan earthquakes is anything, I really hope they’re building it with possible earthquakes in mind. Floods too.
There was a PBS special a few days ago in which the WTC architect, or engineer, responsible for the floor truss design was interviewed, and I was, again, grateful. To PBS and to the man both. You so very seldom see that kind of personal accountability anymore — journalists don’t look for it, individuals refuse to admit it, or hide behind corporations which do the denying for them. There was that guy, though, talking about how he saw the collapse every day, and not out of some mawkish, therapy-culture bid for sympathy, either. That was just the reality of a responsible man. Of course he wasn’t responsible for the planes, but he knew what weaknesses he’d left. I appreciate his clarity and his willingness to be seen.