not your average 9/11 post
Sep. 10th, 2011 01:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elionwyrIn case it's even REMOTELY possible that anyone has missed the news, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US.
That doesn't seem possible. There are kids today that are old enough to walk around NYC and not realize how uniquely unnatural it is to walk through that part of the city and see sunlight rather than the shadows of buildings. (The first time I had that experience, it was like a punch to the stomach to turn and realize that what I was responding to was the presence of brilliant sunshine where, a few months previously, there had been none.)
People are asking each other to post 9/11 remembrance photos on FB, and to send around forwards of images...to not forget. To never forget.
After the attacks, I sobbed at dinner (at Applebee's) in front of the vaguely confused family when our President announced we were going to war. I was obsessed with the names of those that were missing and dead. I had a small website over on geocities, and every day I updated my list with names.
I can't remember them now.
But I do remember this:
I remember the terror of not knowing what to expect.
It seems foolish, now, that we who were not in the targeted areas were so scared. But no one knew what could be a target, and with my then-husband working in center city Philadelphia? I was terrified. The second plane hit, far far away from us, and our phones went dead, and the last thing I'd heard from him was in response to my panicked call about the first plane hitting the towers. "You're overreacting. Everything's fine."
And then it wasn't.
When we finally spoke again, he apologized, told me to stay calm, and to try to get home. While he was borrowing a van from work and taking people back to our home, I was waiting for buses that might not come, as the public transit system seemed to be shutting down and people around me were sobbing, "This is the end of the world!"
We were fine. We just didn't know it yet.
My husband and I arrived at home at pretty much the same time, hours from when we started our separate journeys. We hugged for...a long time. We watched the news, and I asked, "So where's Godzilla?" None of it seemed real to us and our house full of work associates.
When I think of 9/11, I think mostly of that hug.
He and I no longer speak. Seems impossible, how we could go from a time when we thought our world might be ending and the only thing we wanted to do was to find our way back to each other, to there being simple silence.
But tomorrow, I will think of that hug. And what will matter to me more than anything else will be the same as it was on 9/11.
What will matter is love.
That doesn't seem possible. There are kids today that are old enough to walk around NYC and not realize how uniquely unnatural it is to walk through that part of the city and see sunlight rather than the shadows of buildings. (The first time I had that experience, it was like a punch to the stomach to turn and realize that what I was responding to was the presence of brilliant sunshine where, a few months previously, there had been none.)
People are asking each other to post 9/11 remembrance photos on FB, and to send around forwards of images...to not forget. To never forget.
After the attacks, I sobbed at dinner (at Applebee's) in front of the vaguely confused family when our President announced we were going to war. I was obsessed with the names of those that were missing and dead. I had a small website over on geocities, and every day I updated my list with names.
I can't remember them now.
But I do remember this:
I remember the terror of not knowing what to expect.
It seems foolish, now, that we who were not in the targeted areas were so scared. But no one knew what could be a target, and with my then-husband working in center city Philadelphia? I was terrified. The second plane hit, far far away from us, and our phones went dead, and the last thing I'd heard from him was in response to my panicked call about the first plane hitting the towers. "You're overreacting. Everything's fine."
And then it wasn't.
When we finally spoke again, he apologized, told me to stay calm, and to try to get home. While he was borrowing a van from work and taking people back to our home, I was waiting for buses that might not come, as the public transit system seemed to be shutting down and people around me were sobbing, "This is the end of the world!"
We were fine. We just didn't know it yet.
My husband and I arrived at home at pretty much the same time, hours from when we started our separate journeys. We hugged for...a long time. We watched the news, and I asked, "So where's Godzilla?" None of it seemed real to us and our house full of work associates.
When I think of 9/11, I think mostly of that hug.
He and I no longer speak. Seems impossible, how we could go from a time when we thought our world might be ending and the only thing we wanted to do was to find our way back to each other, to there being simple silence.
But tomorrow, I will think of that hug. And what will matter to me more than anything else will be the same as it was on 9/11.
What will matter is love.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-10 11:45 pm (UTC)