I remember the day...
And will have my memory saved for posterity, because I was in front of a computer, on LiveJournal, and started typing.
" 9/11/2001:
This world is fucking insane. I just sat here and watched an airplane fly into one of the Trade Towers. I watched both of them fall to the ground - all the people who might have survived the original blast fell to their deaths. All the people in those hijacked planes. All the people on the ground who were hit with debris, suffocated under massive piles of dust. The Pentagon. The State Department. We are a nation under siege. We are facing an event three hundred times the magnitude of Pearl Harbor. We are a nation of the brink of fucking war. I am terrified.
I'm thinking right now, perhaps selfishly, of Joey. I hope to fuckin' God she wasn't on any plane that crashed, that she's safe at home or somewhere far away from all this bullshyt. She's the only person I know who is on planes all the time, and I hope to fuckin' God she's ok.
All those people....so many people to pray for. I can't believe the horror."
Sounds dramatic, seven years later. It was only a couple of planes. Only three buildings and a field. Only a few thousand deaths. Right?
Wrong.
The day was terrifying. Those of us not at the attack sites sat at home and helplessly watched people die - thousands upon thousands on live TV. Reporters stood, in utter shock and disbelief, covered in the ash of buildings and paper and people, unable to speak or move or make a cognizant thought come out of their well trained lips. Camera crews ran for their lives. No one at the networks pushed a button and pulled us back to the clean, pretty, calm studios. We watched the devestation, broadcast live. We trembled in fear of where it might strike next. I cannot begin to imagine what the people witnessing it first hand felt - I would never presume to attempt to put it into words.
I know that the loss of one life was too many. In 2006, I wrote a memorial to one of the victims - Kenneth Alan Simon. A man I never knew, would probably never have known in my life, made the horrific loss of that day even more real to me that watching it unfold before my eyes did. Kenneth's death was one too many. Every innocent victim, every heroic rescue worker, every family member wandering the streets, searching for their relative, screaming their names. It wasn't just the dead who died that day - it was the hopes and dreams of all their families and friends. It was the senselessness of an enormous, collective loss - death without meaning, death that gave no peace to the Turning of the Circle.
And the loss can't be measured by body count alone - it has to be measure in the loss of the feeling of safety, of normality, of naivete, of life free from the fear of what's happened, what it means, and what's coming. It must be measured by our staggering, teetering economy, in having to wear shoes that can be slipped on and off if you're flying, in second guessing the communications you have with people in certain areas of the world over the internet, in suspicious looks and glances over your shoulders, in secretive acts of violence committed in the name of revenge, ignorance and fear. It's measured in the deaths of the men and women who continue to fight now, today, on foreign soil, in the name of ensuring that it doesn't happen again.
Whatever your political beliefs, whatever you think of the events of 9/11 or the war we fight now, the bottom line is that a horrible, horrible thing happened on this day seven years ago. Innocents across the world were affected, and even today, innocent hearts continue to bleed. People are confused, torn, skeptical, lost. I'm asking you all to take a moment to send up a request for healing and blessings to whatever higher power you believe in, for all the world. And then...
Remember what happens when people are ignorant, angry and violent.
Take action to keep it from happening again, even in a small way. Serve someone with kindness and understanding today, just to make them feel good. Dedicate one minute to tolerance not because you have to, but because it's the better thing to do. Smile when you'd like to lash out, because you have the mental alacrity to be a bigger person.
My prayers of healing go out to each and everyone affected, even if only by the memory. Be well today, my friends.
" 9/11/2001:
This world is fucking insane. I just sat here and watched an airplane fly into one of the Trade Towers. I watched both of them fall to the ground - all the people who might have survived the original blast fell to their deaths. All the people in those hijacked planes. All the people on the ground who were hit with debris, suffocated under massive piles of dust. The Pentagon. The State Department. We are a nation under siege. We are facing an event three hundred times the magnitude of Pearl Harbor. We are a nation of the brink of fucking war. I am terrified.
I'm thinking right now, perhaps selfishly, of Joey. I hope to fuckin' God she wasn't on any plane that crashed, that she's safe at home or somewhere far away from all this bullshyt. She's the only person I know who is on planes all the time, and I hope to fuckin' God she's ok.
All those people....so many people to pray for. I can't believe the horror."
Sounds dramatic, seven years later. It was only a couple of planes. Only three buildings and a field. Only a few thousand deaths. Right?
Wrong.
The day was terrifying. Those of us not at the attack sites sat at home and helplessly watched people die - thousands upon thousands on live TV. Reporters stood, in utter shock and disbelief, covered in the ash of buildings and paper and people, unable to speak or move or make a cognizant thought come out of their well trained lips. Camera crews ran for their lives. No one at the networks pushed a button and pulled us back to the clean, pretty, calm studios. We watched the devestation, broadcast live. We trembled in fear of where it might strike next. I cannot begin to imagine what the people witnessing it first hand felt - I would never presume to attempt to put it into words.
I know that the loss of one life was too many. In 2006, I wrote a memorial to one of the victims - Kenneth Alan Simon. A man I never knew, would probably never have known in my life, made the horrific loss of that day even more real to me that watching it unfold before my eyes did. Kenneth's death was one too many. Every innocent victim, every heroic rescue worker, every family member wandering the streets, searching for their relative, screaming their names. It wasn't just the dead who died that day - it was the hopes and dreams of all their families and friends. It was the senselessness of an enormous, collective loss - death without meaning, death that gave no peace to the Turning of the Circle.
And the loss can't be measured by body count alone - it has to be measure in the loss of the feeling of safety, of normality, of naivete, of life free from the fear of what's happened, what it means, and what's coming. It must be measured by our staggering, teetering economy, in having to wear shoes that can be slipped on and off if you're flying, in second guessing the communications you have with people in certain areas of the world over the internet, in suspicious looks and glances over your shoulders, in secretive acts of violence committed in the name of revenge, ignorance and fear. It's measured in the deaths of the men and women who continue to fight now, today, on foreign soil, in the name of ensuring that it doesn't happen again.
Whatever your political beliefs, whatever you think of the events of 9/11 or the war we fight now, the bottom line is that a horrible, horrible thing happened on this day seven years ago. Innocents across the world were affected, and even today, innocent hearts continue to bleed. People are confused, torn, skeptical, lost. I'm asking you all to take a moment to send up a request for healing and blessings to whatever higher power you believe in, for all the world. And then...
Remember what happens when people are ignorant, angry and violent.
Take action to keep it from happening again, even in a small way. Serve someone with kindness and understanding today, just to make them feel good. Dedicate one minute to tolerance not because you have to, but because it's the better thing to do. Smile when you'd like to lash out, because you have the mental alacrity to be a bigger person.
My prayers of healing go out to each and everyone affected, even if only by the memory. Be well today, my friends.