Obligatory "Where were you?" Post

[the_deep_magic]

I don't have any special connection to the events of 9/11 -- no more than any other American, anyway -- but for some reason I feel the need to do some small thing to mark the occasion.  And maybe it's my very slight compulsive tendencies kicking in; it's not as though the 10-year anniversary is any different from the 9-year anniversary.  But since telling stories is what I do, I suppose I'll tell mine.

I started college in North Carolina in the fall of 2001, so I was less than a month in when the attacks happened.  That semester, I didn't have morning classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I had no plans to wake up before noon.  So I was quite peacefully asleep while my roommate -- she who would eventually become College BFF -- got ready for class.  I was woken when our friend/hallmate burst in the door saying a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. 

BFF thought she was joking, and I was just confused (remember, this was pre-9 a.m.), but we could see there was already a surprising amount of activity in the hallways, people with their doors open and yelling to each other.  Friend said, "Turn on the TV right now," and we did -- literally just in time to see the second plane hit.  I just sat there in bed, on my top bunk, not even getting down to use the bathroom or brush my teeth, and watched the whole thing unfold.  I honestly don't think I moved until the second tower collapsed an hour and a half later. 

Classes were not officially cancelled, but I got e-mails from my professors saying there would be no class.  I was almost disappointed, because that afternoon I had Introduction to the Christian Tradition with a very unusual professor who happened to be an ordained (female) Mennonite minister.  I already liked her very much, and I would have wanted to hear what she had to say.  She did send out an e-mail, which I wish I'd kept, because I remember it being very poignant.  It quoted scriptures on peace from several religious traditions, including Islam.

Just now, after a great deal of digging (and not before finding every other journal that I've ever written in since I was about 8) I found the journal that I was keeping sporadically at the time.  The previous entry, dated August 29, was all about my first day of classes and how I was pretty sure I was going to get along with my roommate.  The very next entry is about the attacks.  Surprisingly, it reads like a news report, as though I needed to record the details or no one else would -- "Both were hijacked commercial planes, carrying 90 and 60 passengers, respectively."  "Top government officials, including President Bush, are secured in a bunker in Nebraska."  "Rumor has it that people in Palestine were celebrating in the streets."  "The proposition of impending war is being whispered nervously about campus.  Mike is worried about being drafted."

There's almost nothing of me in there, of what I felt (not that these events were about me, but it's my journal, after all).  Since the university is in North Carolina, there were few New Yorkers, but there were quite a few students from the D.C. area who were worried about family, particularly because, if I remember correctly, the news coming out of D.C. was conflicting and muddled.  I think I just didn't know how to feel, but I needed to write, so I documented the facts.  I did, however, quote part of "A Divine Image" by William Blake (I went through a Romantics phase; it happens):

Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secrecy the human dress.

And perhaps that's the most revealing bit about me in the whole entry.  Because the poem has a counterpart called "The Divine Image," and though it was written earlier, both poems ended up published in the same work, Songs of Innocence and of Experience

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

The poem ends like this:

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.

However you were affected by the events of ten years ago (and realistically for me, the only effect has been far greater hassle at the airport, so I don't claim to be any kind of victim), I hope that you've made some measure of peace with it on a personal level. I certainly don't think we've done so on a national level, though I do think we're making progress.  Slowly and with painful side effects, but progress nonetheless.

My love to all of you.

Comments

[danack.livejournal.com]

I was at work. I thought it was horrible, and I felt sadness for the families of those who died. I can't remember any personal feelings about it. I guess I'm terribly jaded.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say jaded. I would say that some people, myself included, find it difficult to connect with this giant vortex of emotion without a personal connection, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. If we felt everyone's pain, we'd go crazy.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I remember everyone in every city saying that their city was "next on the list" because of [blank]. It was so obnoxious.

Good for you for taking care of your siblings. That probably helped you a lot, too.

[carmanne.livejournal.com]

I was very young-- fifth grade-- and my teacher didn't turn on the TV or tell us about what was going on because, as he told us later, he felt (as a parent of two kids in my year) that our parents should be able to tell us. The kid who took attendance to the office that day came back with word that some buildings in New York had been bombed, but we had no idea about what had actually happened.

My dad came to pick me up from chorus practice that afternoon, and I still remember sitting in the classroom of one of our teacher-friends and watching CNN. He had to explain to me what had happened and what it meant, and why everyone was so upset. I was sick of the whole thing by the time we got home and went into the other room to watch I Love Lucy.

It wasn't until we realized that no one had heard from my aunt or uncle (both flight attendants for Delta) that I began to feel anxious or anything beyond just... general sadness, I guess. We didn't know what airline had been hijacked/had heard conflicting reports, and it was a terrifying two hours or so before we heard from them.

I remember being really upset that all the kids in my classes seemed to be so angry and were saying such terrible things about Muslims, how we would be better off just invading the Middle East and killing all of them. What upsets me now, looking back, is that these kids were just repeating what they heard adults say around them at home. Anger was quick to boil to the surface, at least in my community.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I understand wanting to protect kids, but they're going to find out somehow, especially if it's EVERYWHERE like it was. And generally, kids aren't going to have a meltdown, because like you said, it wasn't until you knew someone personally involved that it really hit home.

And that's awful about what the kids were saying. I was on a college campus, so everyone was very, very careful about what was said, so at least I was in a respectful environment (though I'm sure some people felt that way and just didn't voice it).

[zjofierose.livejournal.com]

my experience was similar to yours- i was in my second year of college, had just transferred schools and moved across the country. i was asleep, and got woken up by a roommate calling from her office in a panic. my first instincts are always to try and calm people down, so i was reassuring her that it must be a mistake, or a hoax, or a misunderstanding a la the infamous radio broadcast of war of the worlds. i stumbled out to check the tv at her insistence, and watched as the towers fell.

it was not a hoax.

it wasn't a direct thing for me- i remember other students crying and freaking out, but i didn't know anyone involved, and aside from the obvious horror, i remember feeling very disconnected.

i do remember the first, and i think only, time i cried about it- at the first anniversary the london philharmonic? or the london symphony orchestra? not sure. played barber's adagio for strings to an empty hall. that got me. just something about the simplicity of it; beautiful music for the lonely ghosts.

[thyla23.livejournal.com]

I was in primary school reading Harry Potter . I was young so I wasn't able to fully comprehend what had happened,and it wasn't until I went to NY a few months after it had happened did I realise;I just remember looking through a gap between building and just seeing nothing there, and then the year later I went and was able to see Ground Zero and all the missing posters that were on walls.

[beederiffic.livejournal.com]

I was at work, about to leave to go home. Someone ran in and told us that two airplanes had crashed into the WTC. I got home just in time to watch them fall.

What I didn't realize at the time was that I knew someone who died that day. Nobody I was close to. One of my oldest friends (and one of my two bridesmaids) had an uncle on the plane that hit the Pentagon, and I'd had the biggest crush on him for years. GORGEOUS. Could've taught Pinto how to wear a suit. He danced with me at her wedding after I'd already been crushing on him forever, and I about spontaneously came. Italian. Family man, wealthy, worldly, macho as hell. Damn, he was something.

He left her enough money to pay for a new kitchen. I totally forgot to text her to check she was okay yesterday.

I also had a vague internet acquaintance who was in the lobby of the south tower when the plane hit it, dithering about whether or not it was safe to collect something from her office. She survived without injury.

I've never cried over the attacks because I'm not the sort of person to cry over things that have happened to other people, but I feel for the families and friends left behind. I grew up in 70s Britain where terrorist actions were a weekly news occurrence, so perhaps it wasn't as shocking to me that human beings have the capability to hate to that degree -- I remember walking through a street torn apart by an IRA bomb around age 8? I think, with my mother tugging at my hand and not being able to explain to me why it had happened. But I'll never forget 9/11 and how strange it was for everybody. A world power brought to its knees in the most horrifying manner.

I live on a flight path. When the skies were clear after the Icelandic volcanic eruption, it was eerie and unsettling precisely because it reminded me so much of the days after 9/11.