9/11
If you are like me, today you have probably been keeping away from as much media coverage as you can, though its been difficult. Too many raw feelings. But the New York Times had a wonderful editorial today 9/11/06. If you read anything, I think this sums it up, at least for me, for the most part. There is more, but this is succient, and rings true to my heart.
posted by xine at 1:59 PM
3 Comments:
living in new york, as i have since 1999, it is impossible to ignore today's significance. i wasn't here that day in 2001, i was studying in cuba at the time, and as unique as that made my experience of both 9/11 and cuba, it has also colored my experience of 9/11 anniversaries. in cuba i did not have access to us or any foreign news, only that which the cuban government sponsored, and that made for dearth of 9/11 news/coverage that was the extreme opposite of what those of you in the us at the time experienced. I experienced 9/11 in a vacuum and if i had my choice i would experience the anniversaries in my quiet cocoon as well. but living in new york not only can i not wholly avoid the media coverage i cannot avoid the new yorkers who were here that day, and are deeply scarred by the experience. sitting with them, talking with them, watching them, i feel as far away as i did on 9/11/01 sitting in a hotel lobby in havana, wondering if my friends and family were okay, having no way to find out. and i feel a little bit of guilt for not sharing the same depth of emotion that the witnesses feel. there is a distance between us that cannot be filled.
5:19 PM
I don't think that any of us can imagine what it was like to be there that day... the sound of Sonya's voice through my phone, before the towers fell, the complete and total unsensicalness of it remains with me today.
Rose, your talk of being in Cuba reminds me of when I was living in Guatemala and the US started bombing Serbia. I had Denver news coverage via cable in my apartment, and so was able to watch as bridges and hospitals and schools burned to the ground, in towns where my family lived, lives. And the complete and utter indifference of the entire rest of the world around me to it. I was transfixed to the tv, as I know we all were on 9/11.... but there was no community to turn to, no streets to spill into in protest, grief, solidarity, WHATEVER. It was just me and the tv, and the rest of the world going about its business.
I felt that same way when my professor's wife, Jean Dalizu was killed in the Kenyan embassy bombing in 1998. I woke up, read the front page of the Dispatch (home on summer break) and thought: NO. I only know one person who works at the embassy, she must be fine. Then there was her name, one of only 7 listed, because only 7 Americans had died in those double tragedies, the rest remain nameless/faceless Africans in our collective memory. She was the only USian to remain in Africa and be buried there, with her family. Then too, I felt overwhelmed, and alone in that. Oh, brown people dying on the other side of the earth: whatever.
When 9/11 happened, I grieved just as hard, though I knew noone personally who passed that day...
Of course we all have our stories of where we were when we knew what had happened. But for me, the thing that sticks out in my mind is the reaction of those around me. I knew immediately that we needed to be with our loved ones, and holding onto them as tightly as possible, this was a serious thing... the implications would last for generations. As the workers in our buildling crowded around the tv, watching the towers smoke, then the cut away to the pentagon being hit, they all kind of said, gosh... and then went back to their work stations and continued working as usual. I stood there like a mad woman saying: people! what are you doing? there are people dying this second, go home. be with those you love. NOW. they looked at me and kept on working. I went home.
5:52 PM
Honestly, I just feel sort of raw. It makes me tired to think about all that has happened in the past five years. However, one feeling remains: that urge to just hug my loved ones, as tightly as I can. I don't live in constant fear, but I am always aware of how much I love my family and friends. And that just puts all of the pain and destruction that war causes a little more into perspective.
I suppose that feeling also gives me hope in a way. Reading blogs like this one and knowing there are amazing people all over the world that are working toward peace and justice is also reassuring. And so I will go to sleep tonight thinking of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
Megan
9:39 PM
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