5 years later...
So, I wasn't even going to write anything today because when I started this yesterday, it was just too hard, but I don't really need to be that coherent, cuz well, it's my journal. Besides, afterhearing the talk all day long (from an article that one of my friends, who just got a PRIMO -for a super-republican like him- Washington DC speechwriting position and published and article in the Wall Street Journal today to the local radio sex-talk show to just staring at the Empire State building whilst on a smoke break across from the Poject Runway window at Macys), I felt as if I'd be a bad NYer if I could let this day go by without giving it it's due. (Oh, and, yes, I was reluctant to write this, but I started well before midnight, and my cathartic moment began then too, so I'm pretty sure this counts as my remembrance moment of the day).
*****
I don't know about you, but even 5 years after that particular 9/11, I have a really hard time thinking about it. I'm not a very visual person and I tend to remember things in relation to the strongest emotion that the experience imparts. That is to say, when I remember things, I remember how I felt about the experience and the impressions tend to reconstruct themselves from a clearly skewed perspective. Except for That Day. Every single second of That Day is burned on my retinas. That day was such an emotional rollercoaster that I couldn't get a handle on the 'big picture'... and I still can't ...and... I think that's what scares me the most.
It was a gorgeous morning. I woke to the sun on my face and the caress of my very skilled lover, with whom I was deeply in love. Our lovemaking was intense and deep. No, it sounds crazy, but it was really a playful morning of reinforcing/enjoying our strong and almost, dare I say it, spiritual connection. I remember that part well because I remember the almost overwhelming security and rightness that, for once, didn't feel so fleeting. You know the feeling, which, unfortunately, is always too fleeting. It's as if you've finally found 'that secure place' and how sorry you feel for the poor schmucks who don't even have a map to this warm place that -at that moment- seems to be the best candidate for a new permanent residence.
Anyway, that walk under the bright blue sky was short. We yammered on about how 'hungry' we were, but how sated, *right*, and mindblowing our morning already was. Even my clueless 'man's man' of a weight-lifting, meat-headed jock boy could agree that the morning was definitely 'one to write home about'. For once, he even agreed that "some lovin' in the morning" was "definitely the best way to start a day". With a start like this, we felt young, strong, together, and fully charged to greet whatever this spectacular day had to offer.
We loaded up our trays and got on line for the 'all-out' breakfast and as I was ordering, something caught my eye on the small television screen at the end of the counter, by the cash register. I looked up and saw that CNN was showing footage of what looked to be, like, a burning building. My boy pointed it out and I immediately dismissed him with a comment about how it was probably just some stupid movie clip and how even when a prop plane actually hit the empire state building years ago, as every New Yorker knows, business went on as usual.
Sure, that sounds like a callous reaction, but you have to remember that a) I was at University in downtown DC (yes, and by that I mean, the dining hall I was in is right on Pennsylvania Ave.). b) the students at said university -including us- are all news/political junkies who mainline CNN and would riot if it *weren't* shown 24hrs a day in the dining hall. c) Really popular CNN shows *cough*Crossfire*cough* are FILMED on campus. d) New York IS the most filmed city in the world. e) Nothing seems to phase New Yorkers, so whether in Rome or just in relation thereto, we must all act nonchalant, unfazed and/or 'too cool' at all times *g* AND f) Didn't you just hear enough about the incredibly distracting and mind-melding sex that was still muddling our senses?!
Anyway, like I said, I was less than terrified... or even, officially, notified.
So, you can manage my surprise when I walked into the actual dining area and lifted my eyes to the wall of the 120" X 120" screens (yes, 4 60" flat-panel wall-mounted TV screens are networked together on either side of the entrance to provide the daily full-on 120 square inches of CNN-while-you-dine experience), only to be met by what I *knew* -even before I could read the ticker/captions- was my worst nightmare. My tray slipped from my hands and clattered to the table, but I felt too wounded to even be bothered to notice much. I was in complete shock. My hand flew to my chest, almost, as if to assure myself that my still-beating heart hadn't *actually* been ripped out of my chest and as I shakingly plopped into my seat and could only stare blindly at the screen as the words "Who did this to me? To us?" looped through my mind and, as I was later told, out of my mouth.
Immediately, we sat down to see if the devastation was as bad as it looked and just when we thought we could relax... the other plane hit...
Trashing our trays, we ran upstairs to the more comfortable dining hall with leather couches because we didn't want to go too far, but we also knew that that area always played the news in surround-sound along with the captions and that the classes that were getting out for what was to be the next period would flood our area and we wanted to be able to 'hear'. Of course, this whole time, I was trying to reach my family in NYC, but it was already to no avail. The phone lines between DC & NY, both land-line & cell, just wouldn't be capable of handling the call-volume for hours. So, I headed back to our seats, but since we were on the 5th floor of a building (which, in DC where nothing can be taller than the Capital, can be considered pretty tall), some large plume over the top of the other side of the Watergate complex on the far side of the Potomac caught my eye . It would be some long and scary minutes before the news would catch up with our eyes and confirm the fact that, yes, the Pentagon had been hit. But by then, we already knew enough because with buildings for the IMF and NSA archives ON campus and World bank, State department AND FBI buildings within a 2 block radius -not to mention the White house six blocks away, no newscaster was needed to tell us that this attack was deliberate and that the world was, literally, coming down around our ears.
We split up with plans to gather supplies, get more information, locate family members & friends, formulate bits of a plan and meet back at my house which, at a staggering 8 blocks from the white-house, was the most secure, accessible, yet out of-the-danger-zone location that we could think of. Then I went to class to make sure everyone had heard what was up and to say that I was *out*. Then I went to my office across the street at the main library to make sure my co-workers were aware, see if anyone had a spare heads-up (yeah, 4 of those guys now have high level DOD jobs, one's dad is a Navy Seal, and another's dad is an Army Ranger, so thinking of them as a resource wasn't all that sill) and to check if all were OK and had plans of their own. One of the girls there was scared because by then the subways were shut down and she wouldn't be able to get back home to Northern Virginia to her family, let alone get in contact with her mother who was on staff AT the Pentagon (luckily, her mother happened to stay home that day, unlike the husband of another of our co-workers who was an officer in that section of the Pentagon and lost a limb and had to be in recovery for months). I couldn't leave her there alone, scared for her mom and without a plan, so I told her to come over to my place so she could have somewhere more comfortable to figure out what to do and stress about her family like I was stressing about mine.
The day was still gorgeous, but an erie calm had set-in. You see, anyone who hadn't left for work or hadn't gotten to work yet, was back in their homes... watching CNN, so the streets were empty of foot traffic and when we came to the more residential blocks on our way to my apartment, you could actually hear the entirety of the CNN broadcast as the sounds wafted out of the open windows and collided in the middle of the tree-lined streets. We got to my house, sussed out the food/water situation, went to the grocery for more essentials, tried, unsuccessfully to call our families and waited. My 7 closest guy friends lived next-door, so as they trickled in, I knew I would hear all relevant news of my school peeps, who I was pretty sure were all well and accounted for, and being that my stoop and their whole house were the veritable epicenter of our social world, I knew that any and all that I cared about would gravitate towards my location, so I let myself listen for news and obsessively try to connect with my family in NY between bouts of greeting friends. My roomate, who was a peace-core enlistee taking a year off to work at an environmental lobbyist organization on Capitol Hill, walked in about an hour later. She, along with the rest of the Capitol Hill gang, had walked across town in mob formation (remember, no subways and the roads around the city had, by this time, devolved into a parking-lot because the Pentagon is on a pretty crucial piece of highway and the highways outside of the city are circular, so if traffic is interrupted on that kind of level, everything turns to shit).
After an hour more of this, we had heard a lot of news, like the fact that the White House plane had been re-routed. Tensions were high, no one had any answers and though we felt like we were sitting on a time-bomb, we knew that it would be more foolish to jump the gun without reason or information, so we continued to watch, wait and reach-out, but we were all at drawn as taught as piano wires and just as ready to snap. Finally, being college aged and total stoner hippies and only having so many coping methods between us, my roomate and I knew the exact solution to such a problem. WINE! Of course, my roomate, boyfriend and I drank wine EVERY night of the week, so we had bottles on hand and, boy oh, boy did we pop them! Next, my boyfriend came over with his truck loaded with supplies and, wouldn't you know it? He had the same idea and had brought a few bottles from his house. Soon enough, we were out on our stoop with wine and bouncing between my house and our friends' bartering and sharing beer, wine, liquor and bong-hits. Some of our more sober friends listened to the call on the television/radio and went down to the red-cross to give blood. When they returned because the line had actually been cut-off and they were turned away and told to return the next day the turn-out was too great for the red-cross to handle, those of us who felt guilty about our blood-alcohol levels/tatoos/piercings and/or other blood-rejecting issues felt less ashamed...
All the while, between 1:30 - 3ish, almost everyone was getting through on calls to their families and one by one, the tension calmed, the substances got put away, and we all separated and returned to our respective homes in pairs to talk to/be near our loved ones.
After the ordeal/relief of talking and ascertaining the well being of my core family (like my mom who'd worked her last 3 freelance positions -a total of 4 years- in that complex & OEM, which is where Rudy was stationed and had to flee before it crumbled & with the Brooklyn FDNY, who were some of the very first responders) and friends in NYC (like my birthday buddy best child-hood friend who was working in the bookstore in the basement of the North Tower that morning), I was exhausted and it was around dusk. I don't honestly remember what my roomate did that night and I know that we made sure that my co-worker got home alright, but I don't remember the details. All I know is that early evening, from the roof of my guy's apartment, we watched the pentagon burn in silence from behind our wine glasses and watched as the National guard tanks, trucks and soldiers roll down, around, and set up in Washington Circle. When I fell asleep that night, my boyfriends arms made me feel safe as I filed through the detrius of the day and when I got to that last image of the army literally rolling out to protect our position, I couldn't decide if that thought made me feel safe or like more of a target, but I denied towards the side of security and let myself drift asleep with that image playing in my head. I couldn't tell if what we saw was like watching a sick parody of an army on routine manoevers or -being that the Pentagon was buring in the background- one readying itself for war and, as I said, I was exhausted, but somehow I knew not to ask questions that I didn't want the answer to because I acknowledged that the sight that had made us feel -even marginally- protected had been seen from a great and from that height we didn't really see upclose the army that we would, if we didn't rush to snap decisions, hopefully see more soberly and carefully in the harsh light of the next day (and in some instances the next days brought clarity, like when we had to admit how much more disconcerting, scary, and, ultimately, unsettling and scary large guns, artillery, and armed forces -even non-occupational ones- are when experienced in the context of a sunny day in the nation's capitol... *shuddders*... but on some issues, even years later, we managed to let 'hysteria' win the day, like the fact that we're at war with Iraq and NOT Iran right now).
Even after really throwing that out in a written form for the first time... well... I know something important happened on that day... but what that thing was 'in the grand scheme of things'? I couldn't even begin to tell you. I think I've successfully preserved the incident as it relates to me and mine, but, somehow, I don't feel like I have strong enough tools to deal with it entirely. Maybe the pain is just too fresh. Even now, I flinch, at best, or well-up, at worst, when I happen to glance over at the lower Manhattan skyline and see notice the gaping hole where my heart should be. Or maybe I'll never be able to pan-out far enough to see this incident as anything other than completely incomprehensible. The only thing I *do* know is that to even begin to prove respect for the dead, we must not ceace the relentless task of holding up that mirror and looking ourselves in the eye so that we can learn something/anything from that day that can save the lives of others who would be slaughtered similarly and/or, somehow, intercede in the wretched lives of those who might grow up to think of such a vile crime as righteous/good or necessary.
*****
Before you ask, I do, fully, recognize how much my perspective screams 'over-privileged, spoiled-brat American', but I would be disingenuous if I tried to down-play the nonsense, and I was more going for the 'unvarnished' truth/memory as I experienced it, so I didn't edit-out much... I can save that for a time when I'm less wrung-out by this whole day.
*****
I don't know about you, but even 5 years after that particular 9/11, I have a really hard time thinking about it. I'm not a very visual person and I tend to remember things in relation to the strongest emotion that the experience imparts. That is to say, when I remember things, I remember how I felt about the experience and the impressions tend to reconstruct themselves from a clearly skewed perspective. Except for That Day. Every single second of That Day is burned on my retinas. That day was such an emotional rollercoaster that I couldn't get a handle on the 'big picture'... and I still can't ...and... I think that's what scares me the most.
It was a gorgeous morning. I woke to the sun on my face and the caress of my very skilled lover, with whom I was deeply in love. Our lovemaking was intense and deep. No, it sounds crazy, but it was really a playful morning of reinforcing/enjoying our strong and almost, dare I say it, spiritual connection. I remember that part well because I remember the almost overwhelming security and rightness that, for once, didn't feel so fleeting. You know the feeling, which, unfortunately, is always too fleeting. It's as if you've finally found 'that secure place' and how sorry you feel for the poor schmucks who don't even have a map to this warm place that -at that moment- seems to be the best candidate for a new permanent residence.
Anyway, that walk under the bright blue sky was short. We yammered on about how 'hungry' we were, but how sated, *right*, and mindblowing our morning already was. Even my clueless 'man's man' of a weight-lifting, meat-headed jock boy could agree that the morning was definitely 'one to write home about'. For once, he even agreed that "some lovin' in the morning" was "definitely the best way to start a day". With a start like this, we felt young, strong, together, and fully charged to greet whatever this spectacular day had to offer.
We loaded up our trays and got on line for the 'all-out' breakfast and as I was ordering, something caught my eye on the small television screen at the end of the counter, by the cash register. I looked up and saw that CNN was showing footage of what looked to be, like, a burning building. My boy pointed it out and I immediately dismissed him with a comment about how it was probably just some stupid movie clip and how even when a prop plane actually hit the empire state building years ago, as every New Yorker knows, business went on as usual.
Sure, that sounds like a callous reaction, but you have to remember that a) I was at University in downtown DC (yes, and by that I mean, the dining hall I was in is right on Pennsylvania Ave.). b) the students at said university -including us- are all news/political junkies who mainline CNN and would riot if it *weren't* shown 24hrs a day in the dining hall. c) Really popular CNN shows *cough*Crossfire*cough* are FILMED on campus. d) New York IS the most filmed city in the world. e) Nothing seems to phase New Yorkers, so whether in Rome or just in relation thereto, we must all act nonchalant, unfazed and/or 'too cool' at all times *g* AND f) Didn't you just hear enough about the incredibly distracting and mind-melding sex that was still muddling our senses?!
Anyway, like I said, I was less than terrified... or even, officially, notified.
So, you can manage my surprise when I walked into the actual dining area and lifted my eyes to the wall of the 120" X 120" screens (yes, 4 60" flat-panel wall-mounted TV screens are networked together on either side of the entrance to provide the daily full-on 120 square inches of CNN-while-you-dine experience), only to be met by what I *knew* -even before I could read the ticker/captions- was my worst nightmare. My tray slipped from my hands and clattered to the table, but I felt too wounded to even be bothered to notice much. I was in complete shock. My hand flew to my chest, almost, as if to assure myself that my still-beating heart hadn't *actually* been ripped out of my chest and as I shakingly plopped into my seat and could only stare blindly at the screen as the words "Who did this to me? To us?" looped through my mind and, as I was later told, out of my mouth.
Immediately, we sat down to see if the devastation was as bad as it looked and just when we thought we could relax... the other plane hit...
Trashing our trays, we ran upstairs to the more comfortable dining hall with leather couches because we didn't want to go too far, but we also knew that that area always played the news in surround-sound along with the captions and that the classes that were getting out for what was to be the next period would flood our area and we wanted to be able to 'hear'. Of course, this whole time, I was trying to reach my family in NYC, but it was already to no avail. The phone lines between DC & NY, both land-line & cell, just wouldn't be capable of handling the call-volume for hours. So, I headed back to our seats, but since we were on the 5th floor of a building (which, in DC where nothing can be taller than the Capital, can be considered pretty tall), some large plume over the top of the other side of the Watergate complex on the far side of the Potomac caught my eye . It would be some long and scary minutes before the news would catch up with our eyes and confirm the fact that, yes, the Pentagon had been hit. But by then, we already knew enough because with buildings for the IMF and NSA archives ON campus and World bank, State department AND FBI buildings within a 2 block radius -not to mention the White house six blocks away, no newscaster was needed to tell us that this attack was deliberate and that the world was, literally, coming down around our ears.
We split up with plans to gather supplies, get more information, locate family members & friends, formulate bits of a plan and meet back at my house which, at a staggering 8 blocks from the white-house, was the most secure, accessible, yet out of-the-danger-zone location that we could think of. Then I went to class to make sure everyone had heard what was up and to say that I was *out*. Then I went to my office across the street at the main library to make sure my co-workers were aware, see if anyone had a spare heads-up (yeah, 4 of those guys now have high level DOD jobs, one's dad is a Navy Seal, and another's dad is an Army Ranger, so thinking of them as a resource wasn't all that sill) and to check if all were OK and had plans of their own. One of the girls there was scared because by then the subways were shut down and she wouldn't be able to get back home to Northern Virginia to her family, let alone get in contact with her mother who was on staff AT the Pentagon (luckily, her mother happened to stay home that day, unlike the husband of another of our co-workers who was an officer in that section of the Pentagon and lost a limb and had to be in recovery for months). I couldn't leave her there alone, scared for her mom and without a plan, so I told her to come over to my place so she could have somewhere more comfortable to figure out what to do and stress about her family like I was stressing about mine.
The day was still gorgeous, but an erie calm had set-in. You see, anyone who hadn't left for work or hadn't gotten to work yet, was back in their homes... watching CNN, so the streets were empty of foot traffic and when we came to the more residential blocks on our way to my apartment, you could actually hear the entirety of the CNN broadcast as the sounds wafted out of the open windows and collided in the middle of the tree-lined streets. We got to my house, sussed out the food/water situation, went to the grocery for more essentials, tried, unsuccessfully to call our families and waited. My 7 closest guy friends lived next-door, so as they trickled in, I knew I would hear all relevant news of my school peeps, who I was pretty sure were all well and accounted for, and being that my stoop and their whole house were the veritable epicenter of our social world, I knew that any and all that I cared about would gravitate towards my location, so I let myself listen for news and obsessively try to connect with my family in NY between bouts of greeting friends. My roomate, who was a peace-core enlistee taking a year off to work at an environmental lobbyist organization on Capitol Hill, walked in about an hour later. She, along with the rest of the Capitol Hill gang, had walked across town in mob formation (remember, no subways and the roads around the city had, by this time, devolved into a parking-lot because the Pentagon is on a pretty crucial piece of highway and the highways outside of the city are circular, so if traffic is interrupted on that kind of level, everything turns to shit).
After an hour more of this, we had heard a lot of news, like the fact that the White House plane had been re-routed. Tensions were high, no one had any answers and though we felt like we were sitting on a time-bomb, we knew that it would be more foolish to jump the gun without reason or information, so we continued to watch, wait and reach-out, but we were all at drawn as taught as piano wires and just as ready to snap. Finally, being college aged and total stoner hippies and only having so many coping methods between us, my roomate and I knew the exact solution to such a problem. WINE! Of course, my roomate, boyfriend and I drank wine EVERY night of the week, so we had bottles on hand and, boy oh, boy did we pop them! Next, my boyfriend came over with his truck loaded with supplies and, wouldn't you know it? He had the same idea and had brought a few bottles from his house. Soon enough, we were out on our stoop with wine and bouncing between my house and our friends' bartering and sharing beer, wine, liquor and bong-hits. Some of our more sober friends listened to the call on the television/radio and went down to the red-cross to give blood. When they returned because the line had actually been cut-off and they were turned away and told to return the next day the turn-out was too great for the red-cross to handle, those of us who felt guilty about our blood-alcohol levels/tatoos/piercings and/or other blood-rejecting issues felt less ashamed...
All the while, between 1:30 - 3ish, almost everyone was getting through on calls to their families and one by one, the tension calmed, the substances got put away, and we all separated and returned to our respective homes in pairs to talk to/be near our loved ones.
After the ordeal/relief of talking and ascertaining the well being of my core family (like my mom who'd worked her last 3 freelance positions -a total of 4 years- in that complex & OEM, which is where Rudy was stationed and had to flee before it crumbled & with the Brooklyn FDNY, who were some of the very first responders) and friends in NYC (like my birthday buddy best child-hood friend who was working in the bookstore in the basement of the North Tower that morning), I was exhausted and it was around dusk. I don't honestly remember what my roomate did that night and I know that we made sure that my co-worker got home alright, but I don't remember the details. All I know is that early evening, from the roof of my guy's apartment, we watched the pentagon burn in silence from behind our wine glasses and watched as the National guard tanks, trucks and soldiers roll down, around, and set up in Washington Circle. When I fell asleep that night, my boyfriends arms made me feel safe as I filed through the detrius of the day and when I got to that last image of the army literally rolling out to protect our position, I couldn't decide if that thought made me feel safe or like more of a target, but I denied towards the side of security and let myself drift asleep with that image playing in my head. I couldn't tell if what we saw was like watching a sick parody of an army on routine manoevers or -being that the Pentagon was buring in the background- one readying itself for war and, as I said, I was exhausted, but somehow I knew not to ask questions that I didn't want the answer to because I acknowledged that the sight that had made us feel -even marginally- protected had been seen from a great and from that height we didn't really see upclose the army that we would, if we didn't rush to snap decisions, hopefully see more soberly and carefully in the harsh light of the next day (and in some instances the next days brought clarity, like when we had to admit how much more disconcerting, scary, and, ultimately, unsettling and scary large guns, artillery, and armed forces -even non-occupational ones- are when experienced in the context of a sunny day in the nation's capitol... *shuddders*... but on some issues, even years later, we managed to let 'hysteria' win the day, like the fact that we're at war with Iraq and NOT Iran right now).
Even after really throwing that out in a written form for the first time... well... I know something important happened on that day... but what that thing was 'in the grand scheme of things'? I couldn't even begin to tell you. I think I've successfully preserved the incident as it relates to me and mine, but, somehow, I don't feel like I have strong enough tools to deal with it entirely. Maybe the pain is just too fresh. Even now, I flinch, at best, or well-up, at worst, when I happen to glance over at the lower Manhattan skyline and see notice the gaping hole where my heart should be. Or maybe I'll never be able to pan-out far enough to see this incident as anything other than completely incomprehensible. The only thing I *do* know is that to even begin to prove respect for the dead, we must not ceace the relentless task of holding up that mirror and looking ourselves in the eye so that we can learn something/anything from that day that can save the lives of others who would be slaughtered similarly and/or, somehow, intercede in the wretched lives of those who might grow up to think of such a vile crime as righteous/good or necessary.
*****
Before you ask, I do, fully, recognize how much my perspective screams 'over-privileged, spoiled-brat American', but I would be disingenuous if I tried to down-play the nonsense, and I was more going for the 'unvarnished' truth/memory as I experienced it, so I didn't edit-out much... I can save that for a time when I'm less wrung-out by this whole day.