On a more serious and auspicious note
Sep. 10th, 2006 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenWe all know what tomorrow is. I don't have plans to commemorate, commiserate or even cry. I rather wonder, if not for the fact we are being told to hang our heads in silence if half the people in this country would even remember what happened five years ago. I've had such a lovely weekend and I'm quite tired out from it--if not for a link I got from a friend's journal (the link to a story that discusses Pearl Harbor is here), I might easily have forgotten myself.
I haven't forgotten what happened, of course. As is the curse for many, I remember all too well the disorientation, the confusion, the horror, the disbelief, and the surges and fits of wanting to help and feeling helpless. On the sliding scale of geographical involvement with September 11th, I am one of millions who was all to close to the disaster. On the personal level, I am closer than some, but luckier than many; I knew and am related to people who worked in the towers, but none died. I do still get teary thinking of it, and God knows, propaganda issues aside, I still wouldn't touch that fucking piece of trash ABC "docu-drama" (a new buzzword for "lies told about real people"). I don't need it. Tomorrow, I will probably avoid every blog I tend to read and not refreshing a single news source online.
A friend of mine told me soon after the fact that she never felt the rendering, tearing awfulness of that day because she slept through the disaster. By the time she woke up, the planes were all down--all being the operative word; they'd ordered all flights grounded by then. It just did not happen for her in the same way as it happened to other people--for good or for ill--because she wasn't aware of it.
In a parallel universe, that could have been me. I woke to my clock radio's first of many snooze cyclings. I woke to the click of it going on to the radio, but nothing else. I hit the snooze. In that parallel universe, that is how I remained--unaware that radio silence was not dead air between commercials or a station blip. In this reality, my alarm clock went off again seven minutes later. I had had my clock on snooze for seven minutes since I'd figured out the snooze function in high school, which was some years after I'd gotten that clock as part of growing up by waking myself up when I moved on to middle school.
Seven minutes later, the radio hosts were swearing and whispering as if they were afraid of being caught by the FCC. I doubt they ever were. I heard the important buzzwords, which needed to nestle in my slow brain before I could process them. It sounded like a gag--a phone prank like many other a morning. World Trade Center. Smoke. One tower was gone before I would fall out of my top bunk and rush for my ROLM phone. I consider it a minor miracle I remembered my 10-digit passcode and my home phone number (it didn't matter that it hadn't changed ever in my lifetime, I could easily have forgotten).
My grandmother answered. She's my father's mother, and the toughest bird you've ever met. We used to butt heads all the time (a family jewel of a story involves me demanding to know whether it was she or my father who was ultimately in charge of me when we disagreed over her babysitting strictures), but I mellowed and we chilled. She knew why I was calling, and she didn't think I was stupid. "Your mom and dad are fine, sweetie." She didn't know that. "I'm sure as soon as they land, they'll call you. Drew and Devin are fine. Are you okay?"
She never said I was an idiot for not remembering what had happened only the two days before. She, along with my mother's father and his wife, had accompanied my parents into the city to see my new suite. My parents were headed out to an annual bankers' conference that they went to every year. The last time I'd been to Disney World was when the conference was in Orlando. They'd asked my grandmother up to New York to babysit my younger sisters. On Tuesday, they'd flown out, bound for Arizona. I broke down for the first time in relief. I managed a stilted apology to the teacher of the class I had at 10:30 that morning. His fiance worked downtown, and he wanted only to be off the phone, but he cheered me. He worked at the Interchurch Center, told me to have faith, even if I had no God to put it in, and let me go.
It was the last phonecall I got until 7-8pm that evening. Phones weren't working, and I had no cell at the time. If not for AIM, I wouldn't have heard about my friend from high school's mother feeling the vibrations as the planes went by her office window. I wouldn't have known my friend at NYU was relocated. I couldn't stay at the computer, though, so I left a message and implored those I loved, if they saw it, to let me know they were okay and to let them know I was.
From there, my story isn't much different from anyone else's that I know. I wrapped my former roommate in a hug and we cried in front of the TV, watching from the 18th floor window the smoking scene downtown and the hideous wrong-ness of one, then no towers left. We left the suite door ajar, welcomed any to watch the news with us. Someone, I think it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bigscary marched us down to St. Luke's to see about donating blood. The line was out the door. People in need were offered free food and places to stay if they were trapped and unable to get home when the bridges and MTA shut down. I loved my city. I saw smoke in the sky even from 116th street. I hated the world.
My parents called me from Dallas just as I was reaching the strung-out-from-crying tiredness of a day's spent weary. I burst into tears and then giggles as my mother told me about how my father was pissed that they'd been rerouted to Dallas (no one onboard had been told of what happened for security reasons--only crew knew), and that he'd gone marching around the terminal to figure out what was wrong before finding the news show. They went to stay with my uncle who lives in San Antonio and ended up driving back home in a rental. My siblings and I all touched base, my brother and I discovering that we'd each been dismissed from our classes for the day, and unheard of event for Columbia and medical school. I don't remember falling asleep, I only remember being tired after that.
And what else is there in the after? A book of short stories I read, Twilight of the Superheroes talks of people in transition, waiting for that Tuesday to go on where the world didn't end. I'm not mired in that, thank God. I knew terrorism was a fact of life when I found my father--never previously seen home before eight in the evening--walking towards me and my mother coming home from elementary school in 1993. He had blackened tissues--the kind that were balled and crumpled because they were really napkins he just shoved in his pockets--from wiping his nose as he walked down forty flights in smokey darkness. I, unlike most, knew there was danger. I got lucky both times, so I admit to there being some simple denial at work, but I am not mired in the need to rehash the thing. Does it disturb me? I thinkhslayer and viridian remember our trip to Fahrenheit 9/11 well enough to support me in saying yes.
Do I denigrate other ways of remembering or recognizing? No. Do I wish to do, as I have for four years previous, to think on the day, lament it, and wish not to let it cast a pall over my entire day? Absolutely. Remember, recognize, but do not rue.
What about the rest of you? Who wants to tell their story? Who will formally pour a 40 for 9/11 tomorrow? Sound off, I want to know how you, my friends all, will treat, ignore, or otherwise tread tenderly around tomorrrow.
I haven't forgotten what happened, of course. As is the curse for many, I remember all too well the disorientation, the confusion, the horror, the disbelief, and the surges and fits of wanting to help and feeling helpless. On the sliding scale of geographical involvement with September 11th, I am one of millions who was all to close to the disaster. On the personal level, I am closer than some, but luckier than many; I knew and am related to people who worked in the towers, but none died. I do still get teary thinking of it, and God knows, propaganda issues aside, I still wouldn't touch that fucking piece of trash ABC "docu-drama" (a new buzzword for "lies told about real people"). I don't need it. Tomorrow, I will probably avoid every blog I tend to read and not refreshing a single news source online.
A friend of mine told me soon after the fact that she never felt the rendering, tearing awfulness of that day because she slept through the disaster. By the time she woke up, the planes were all down--all being the operative word; they'd ordered all flights grounded by then. It just did not happen for her in the same way as it happened to other people--for good or for ill--because she wasn't aware of it.
In a parallel universe, that could have been me. I woke to my clock radio's first of many snooze cyclings. I woke to the click of it going on to the radio, but nothing else. I hit the snooze. In that parallel universe, that is how I remained--unaware that radio silence was not dead air between commercials or a station blip. In this reality, my alarm clock went off again seven minutes later. I had had my clock on snooze for seven minutes since I'd figured out the snooze function in high school, which was some years after I'd gotten that clock as part of growing up by waking myself up when I moved on to middle school.
Seven minutes later, the radio hosts were swearing and whispering as if they were afraid of being caught by the FCC. I doubt they ever were. I heard the important buzzwords, which needed to nestle in my slow brain before I could process them. It sounded like a gag--a phone prank like many other a morning. World Trade Center. Smoke. One tower was gone before I would fall out of my top bunk and rush for my ROLM phone. I consider it a minor miracle I remembered my 10-digit passcode and my home phone number (it didn't matter that it hadn't changed ever in my lifetime, I could easily have forgotten).
My grandmother answered. She's my father's mother, and the toughest bird you've ever met. We used to butt heads all the time (a family jewel of a story involves me demanding to know whether it was she or my father who was ultimately in charge of me when we disagreed over her babysitting strictures), but I mellowed and we chilled. She knew why I was calling, and she didn't think I was stupid. "Your mom and dad are fine, sweetie." She didn't know that. "I'm sure as soon as they land, they'll call you. Drew and Devin are fine. Are you okay?"
She never said I was an idiot for not remembering what had happened only the two days before. She, along with my mother's father and his wife, had accompanied my parents into the city to see my new suite. My parents were headed out to an annual bankers' conference that they went to every year. The last time I'd been to Disney World was when the conference was in Orlando. They'd asked my grandmother up to New York to babysit my younger sisters. On Tuesday, they'd flown out, bound for Arizona. I broke down for the first time in relief. I managed a stilted apology to the teacher of the class I had at 10:30 that morning. His fiance worked downtown, and he wanted only to be off the phone, but he cheered me. He worked at the Interchurch Center, told me to have faith, even if I had no God to put it in, and let me go.
It was the last phonecall I got until 7-8pm that evening. Phones weren't working, and I had no cell at the time. If not for AIM, I wouldn't have heard about my friend from high school's mother feeling the vibrations as the planes went by her office window. I wouldn't have known my friend at NYU was relocated. I couldn't stay at the computer, though, so I left a message and implored those I loved, if they saw it, to let me know they were okay and to let them know I was.
From there, my story isn't much different from anyone else's that I know. I wrapped my former roommate in a hug and we cried in front of the TV, watching from the 18th floor window the smoking scene downtown and the hideous wrong-ness of one, then no towers left. We left the suite door ajar, welcomed any to watch the news with us. Someone, I think it was
bigscary marched us down to St. Luke's to see about donating blood. The line was out the door. People in need were offered free food and places to stay if they were trapped and unable to get home when the bridges and MTA shut down. I loved my city. I saw smoke in the sky even from 116th street. I hated the world.My parents called me from Dallas just as I was reaching the strung-out-from-crying tiredness of a day's spent weary. I burst into tears and then giggles as my mother told me about how my father was pissed that they'd been rerouted to Dallas (no one onboard had been told of what happened for security reasons--only crew knew), and that he'd gone marching around the terminal to figure out what was wrong before finding the news show. They went to stay with my uncle who lives in San Antonio and ended up driving back home in a rental. My siblings and I all touched base, my brother and I discovering that we'd each been dismissed from our classes for the day, and unheard of event for Columbia and medical school. I don't remember falling asleep, I only remember being tired after that.
And what else is there in the after? A book of short stories I read, Twilight of the Superheroes talks of people in transition, waiting for that Tuesday to go on where the world didn't end. I'm not mired in that, thank God. I knew terrorism was a fact of life when I found my father--never previously seen home before eight in the evening--walking towards me and my mother coming home from elementary school in 1993. He had blackened tissues--the kind that were balled and crumpled because they were really napkins he just shoved in his pockets--from wiping his nose as he walked down forty flights in smokey darkness. I, unlike most, knew there was danger. I got lucky both times, so I admit to there being some simple denial at work, but I am not mired in the need to rehash the thing. Does it disturb me? I think
hslayer and viridian remember our trip to Fahrenheit 9/11 well enough to support me in saying yes.Do I denigrate other ways of remembering or recognizing? No. Do I wish to do, as I have for four years previous, to think on the day, lament it, and wish not to let it cast a pall over my entire day? Absolutely. Remember, recognize, but do not rue.
What about the rest of you? Who wants to tell their story? Who will formally pour a 40 for 9/11 tomorrow? Sound off, I want to know how you, my friends all, will treat, ignore, or otherwise tread tenderly around tomorrrow.
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Re: sad memories
Date: 2006-09-12 02:21 pm (UTC)I guess I understand my friend who slept through September 11th a little better reading about 1993 and your recollection. Dad coming up Rodney towards Edgewood was the first that either I or Mom knew about the bombing. She'd been out all day on errands, and they didn't break into our routine at school (I think it was late enough in the day they probably decided it was better to keep us to a normal schedule). We were extremely lucky.
Reading over some of these stories from folk, I realize how lucky. I really do not know anyone killed in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington DC. I have no ancilliary acquaintances to mourn specifically, just the memory of that day and the scant minutes I forgot about how lucky I was before I got Grandma on the phone. That was plenty. Those who've shared deeper losses, I don't know how they made it, but I'm definitely impressed.