Anniversaries: Live Journal and 9/11
September 9 was my tenth anniversary on LiveJournal. I intend to write about these last ten years at some point very soon.
September 11 is the 12th anniversary of the attacks on New York City, the Pentagon and a third location of which we'll never be certain (the White House? the Capitol? Has it ever been determined for sure?). In the ten years I've been a LiveJournal subscriber, I've never written about that day. I just checked--went back through 10 years of entries and found that either I never posted on September 11 and never wrote about it in the days before or after that date. At most I've posted brief things like "To absent friends..." or "Never forget..." and left it at that.
My memories of that day and the days that followed are fuzzy and weird. I remember that morning, turning on The Today Show to watch over breakfast as I did every day back then. I remember watching, and Katie Couric talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. It was the first plane, and they were showing a shot of the smoking building over her shoulder. It was a live feed so, as she was reading the news about the first impact, the second plane came into the frame and hit the second building. She looked over her shoulder to see both towers damaged. I was standing at the time and I actually collapsed to the floor when I saw that.
Now here's the thing: That's my memory, very clear. But I just watched the broadcast again on YouTube (Part One | Part Two), and that's not how NBC showed it. They had Matt Lauer and Katie Couric sitting on a couch at the beginning of the story and they cut to a live feed of the towers--which they never cut away from--throughout the next half hour at least. So my memory of Couric reporting and looking behind her is something my brain created. I can't tell you why, but there it is. And weirdly, watching those videos again, I now remember seeing that as well as this clear memory of Couric reading and turning around to see the video.
I went into work that day in a haze. I remember people asking me if I was all right, because I was clearly not. I shouldn't have gone into work. I remember posting to a mailing list I was--and still am--on that is comprised mostly of NYC friends and telling them to check in, to let us out on the west coast know they were OK. I don't remember much of the day after that, except for sitting at home and watching the news like a zombie. The next things I remember about those days are bits and pieces:
We do live in different times. Americans have changed; our profile in the world and our influence have changed. Our perspective has changed. I want to believe that we're kinder, more empathetic, more sensitive about war and about how our actions affect others. I know that some of us are less tolerant, more fearful, less generous. It's not a safe world. For Americans, it was safe before 9/11 -- or at least we believed it was. What I've seen as I've traveled is that on a one-to-one level people are still kind, generous, curious about each other, loving and open. But on an international level, at the federal level, it's different now. It will never be the same again.
September 11 is the 12th anniversary of the attacks on New York City, the Pentagon and a third location of which we'll never be certain (the White House? the Capitol? Has it ever been determined for sure?). In the ten years I've been a LiveJournal subscriber, I've never written about that day. I just checked--went back through 10 years of entries and found that either I never posted on September 11 and never wrote about it in the days before or after that date. At most I've posted brief things like "To absent friends..." or "Never forget..." and left it at that.
My memories of that day and the days that followed are fuzzy and weird. I remember that morning, turning on The Today Show to watch over breakfast as I did every day back then. I remember watching, and Katie Couric talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. It was the first plane, and they were showing a shot of the smoking building over her shoulder. It was a live feed so, as she was reading the news about the first impact, the second plane came into the frame and hit the second building. She looked over her shoulder to see both towers damaged. I was standing at the time and I actually collapsed to the floor when I saw that.
Now here's the thing: That's my memory, very clear. But I just watched the broadcast again on YouTube (Part One | Part Two), and that's not how NBC showed it. They had Matt Lauer and Katie Couric sitting on a couch at the beginning of the story and they cut to a live feed of the towers--which they never cut away from--throughout the next half hour at least. So my memory of Couric reporting and looking behind her is something my brain created. I can't tell you why, but there it is. And weirdly, watching those videos again, I now remember seeing that as well as this clear memory of Couric reading and turning around to see the video.
I went into work that day in a haze. I remember people asking me if I was all right, because I was clearly not. I shouldn't have gone into work. I remember posting to a mailing list I was--and still am--on that is comprised mostly of NYC friends and telling them to check in, to let us out on the west coast know they were OK. I don't remember much of the day after that, except for sitting at home and watching the news like a zombie. The next things I remember about those days are bits and pieces:
- The skies being crisp blue and eerily quiet for days after, with no air traffic
- Being freaked out because I was supposed to go to the Frankfurt Book Fair and not wanting to fly
- Wanting desperately to be in New York with my friends and family; wanting to be in my city; feeling isolated from other New Yorkers and feeling like I was alone on the other side of the country, mourning for my home town
- Going to the impromptu 9/11 memorial put together at the International Fountain at Seattle Center. I remember models of the Pentagon and the towers made of match sticks that someone had left there in amongst the flowers, teddy bears and notes. The Seattle Fire Department erected folding screens upon which they put flowers and cards, fire department patches and wreaths. I remember bursting into tears there. A black woman and her daughter came over to me, put their arms around me and started to pray--people I'd never met before, and never saw again. It was a remarkable moment. I'm still grateful to them.
- I was working for WizKids at the time. Two days after the event, I remember the company's VP in charge of marketing grousing that business was still shut down in New York City, and that he couldn't understand why people couldn't just pull themselves together and get back to work. I felt such hatred for him at that moment, and the dislike never went away. Until the day I left the company, I had nothing but disdain for him. I still feel it, even now.
- I remember people in Seattle talking about how scary it must be to go to work in the Seattle's downtown skyscrapers and thinking that they just didn't understand. There's not a single building in Seattle that is nearly as important as the World Trade Center was as a symbol of America--not a one. The only thing that comes within shouting distance, maybe, is the Space Needle, and its status is so small compared to things like the State of Liberty or Independence Hall that it wouldn't be a first-tier target. Not that it would never be a target, but not like the Twin Towers were, or the Pentagon. Seattle's ports are more likely to be attacked than our skyscrapers or the Needle. It just isn't the same.
We do live in different times. Americans have changed; our profile in the world and our influence have changed. Our perspective has changed. I want to believe that we're kinder, more empathetic, more sensitive about war and about how our actions affect others. I know that some of us are less tolerant, more fearful, less generous. It's not a safe world. For Americans, it was safe before 9/11 -- or at least we believed it was. What I've seen as I've traveled is that on a one-to-one level people are still kind, generous, curious about each other, loving and open. But on an international level, at the federal level, it's different now. It will never be the same again.