Today, as a writer, I sit and watch the services for those lost two years ago on that horrible day, September 11th, 2001. As it is the second anniversary of the tragedy, I think to write at least something about it. And so I will say here, where I was, what I was doing, and a little on how I felt that day.
I was at a 'new hire' class, waiting with two other people for the 'teacher' to return with the insurance information we would have to file for our new jobs. I remember her coming back in the room the first time
"A plane just hit one of the World Trade Center towers," she said, then she left out the door again.
I remember I made some little quiet joke about it saying, "See, and that's why I don't go to New York."
And then she came back and said "Another plane has hit the other tower." Then she left again out the door.
I made another remark saying to the other two people at the table with me, "I think God is trying to tell us to stay the hell outta the skies, because recently we have had alot of accidents involving planes and stuff." Something like that, I said, I suppose to ease the bit of tension. We three sat there, discussing in no great detail all the recent disasters taking place in the air that year so far.
And then shortly after that, our 'teacher' returned, visually nervous, and calmly stating, "I don't know what you want to do, things are really weird today, but, it seems that another plane has just hit the Pentagon."
I didn't make any more comments at her words, for my grandmother, and I at one point, lived in North Arlington, VA and you could almost see the Pentagon from her apartment. I remember thinking 'My mother once told me she learned to DRIVE in the Pentagon's huge parking lot when she was young; 'they were in our backyard!' Without more words to those people, than "I gotta go now..." I left.
The gas pedal couldn't get close enough to the floorboards for me, and I nervously glanced around as I sped down the interstate, wondering, trying to read in the faces of the other drivers, 'Do they know? Are they listening to their radios; the news about all of this, as I am now? Part of me wanted to honk, and roll down my window and yell things, like they do in distaster movies, 'They're coming...they're here! We have been attacked!' Something like that. But the human instinct of survival tinged deeply with miles of intuition told me to not say a word, to not cause a panic, for such a traffic jam would keep me from getting to where I was going. So I just drove, faster than I thought I ever could or thought I would ever want to. I didn't care if I got a ticket. The cops would have to chase me up to my front door if they were going to catch up with me, I remember thinking, as I neared the exit to my town. I was doing ninety when I hit the offramp leading to my house. I raced through town, bottoming out as I sped though the crossstreets of the neighborhoods. I barely got my car in park, or closed the car door before I rushed up the stairs, to find my boyfriend, whom I had had a fight with the night before, and left for work that morning without speaking again to him until that moment.
I looked at him, tears welling in my eyes, stinging in the smoke-permeated air in that living room that day. "They've gone and done it," Is all I said, as he rolled over on the couch, and looked at me. The reason for our fight was of miniscule concern if any, in my head, and I hoped in his as well, by this time.
He asked me, "They who?" and "Gone and done what? What in the hell are you talking about?" I told him. He didn't believe me.
I told him, "It will be all over the news." He turned on the set. And there it was, in living color, care of CNN. The towers...over and over and over. And then the Pentagon in between. The first lady, Laura Bush even made a public service announcement some weeks later about how we must keep our children from dwelling on these pictures the media was showing us constantly. But it was that first "impact" in my mind...'they are here...we will be done with...it is all over.' And still as I sat and worked it through my mind, with those images ever vigilant on the watch to remind me...flashing on the television, for you just couldn't turn it off...I couldn't. I was afraid to. They might hit us again. I didn't want to know, but I desperately wanted to know. Confusion wracked me to understand that which is incomprehesible. I became numb, perhaps out of human condition to the images eventually.
I thought then on all those I have walked in a huff away from; people in my life, my loved ones, after what seemed like victory or defeat as the outcome of some silly argument. Many times never saying then, "I'm sorry" or "I love you." That all changes after 9/11. It all changed.
How petty we could be, when it is all really about all of us? And why should it take such a wake up call as the death and terror of so many to bring me to such a conclusion? To paint a flag over the entire window of my apartment? Never much for the government in this country, I felt a synergistic power, singed in hatred, and unrelenting fear in waving flags, crying uncontrollably, waking from fitful sleep for months, every time I heard the slightest of noises. And that same man, the one I had yelled back at during our awful fight on September 10th was there, holding me and saying, each and everytime then, "That's a truck, baby...That's just the helicopter taking someone to the hospital...That's a skateboarder on the sidewalk..." Two years later, sounds don't affect me quite as easily, and life is a little less fearful. I wonder if that is because I know I lived through that worst day already, or if I have just become accustomed to the fear of it all. Yet still, I confess that should I be watching, for instance, the History Channel, another riveting excerpt on the Third Reich of Hitler, or lounging around, tootling on my pc, as I pay otherwise, little attention to my ambiant television, and the sound goes out, or the picture fuzzes a moment...that flash...that fear...my heart again drops suddenly, skipping a beat or two...for I have, and never will forget that day my world was changed forever.
