[NOTE: The following is something I wrote on the Sunday after 9/11. I posted it on another site, which is no longer there; last year, I posted it here. I thought in memory of today 4 years ago, I would post it again here. I think I will post this story every year, and no other posts on this site on this day from now on as a remembrance of that day. As a not-so-interesting aside, a Brazilian reporter quoted the first paragraph (translated into Portuguese) in his story about 9/11. ]
Sunday. My day of rest from work. Yet I must read for class. Still, I slept in and feel better for it. I am at Roma's and futbol is on; a nice alternative to the news on the other stations. A break from the horror. Nice to be surrounded by people speaking Spanish and Italian. I can let the languages wash over me and even if they speak of the tragedy, I can not understand it, I can only hear the rhythm of other humans speaking and it is soothing. A public solitude away from the solitude of my apartment.
How does one speak of such tragedy? How does anyone say anything without it ringing false? Everything factual about the case that can be said has been said and all the active mythologizing of the moment is starting to ring very false and improper coming from the mouths of the talking heads on tv. The repeated images of the event; many of the reports quote people saying that it is all too surreal. Only it is the most real thing that any of us have experienced.
How does anyone speak of something so real with mere words? That day and this week have been beyond words and our inability to reach and vocalize the reality of this moment leads us to label it as “surreal”.
What type of day was Tuesday? It was a beautiful, warm sunny day, one of the last really warm days before the cold Fall comes. Tuesday was also an evil day. An evil day for which evil men were made. Such a day was Tuesday.
The clear blue sky against which the smoke billowed, at first from one tower, then the second, then all of lower Manhattan engulfed in dust and smoke and rubble and framed from my distant by 13 miles perspective by the bright blue sky. 13 miles that is all. My mother far away in Jackson, Mississippi called me and told me that they measured it on a map and she measured from there to the Bronx and 13 miles by road or straightway she did not say. It is strange to think it.
I was getting ready for work, watching The Today Show, not really watching but it was on in the background, and suddenly they cut to the first tower burning, a plane crash of some sort, and everyone thought it an accident. I remember laughing in shock at the sight of it. Laughing!
Then there was suddenly an explosion in the 2nd tower and we didn't realize until they rewound the tape that it was a second plane. Then everyone realized it was terrorism. A terrotist attack. At that early moment it was difficult to grasp the enormity of it. Even now it is hard to comprehend. No one knew what to do.
They announced the closing of all the bridges; I took a shower, came out and called in to my work upstate in Tarrytown, to see whether I should come in or not (the satellite at Roma's has suddenly stopped working; odd now) They said traffic was fine so I went down the stairs and drove into work listening to the radio reports of the day's events.
During my commute, a plane hit the Pentagon. The Pentagon! And the first tower collapsed. Nearly as soon as I arrived at work they announced they were closing. (Now they've taken the satellite off and CBS 2 with live coverage of Mayor Guilianni discussing the tragedy, “Without courage nothing else would really matter”) More later, I cannot write with this on…
Related posts:
