| I wrote this the day after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I live in NYC, less than a mile away from the site. I saw with my own eyes the buildings going down. It was a strange day. My beliefs are a bit diff after learning more, but, the thing is still interesting because it describes an odd moment in New York City. |
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September 12, 2001: t feels like a weird holiday. The streets are packed with people strolling. No stores are open. Despite the crowds of people, everything is deafeningly silent. Gliding from its own passionless inertia, passerbys pass without a thought of their destination, truly a miracle in New York City.
Imagine. I too was walking without a place to go. I coughed. The clarity that I heard my own cough, enough to make out its edges, its beginning and ending, despite the throng of people in front and behind me, It was the eariest testimony that something extraordinary has happened here. New York is normally a place of noise that absorbs lesser noises into the collective tumult. Today, you hear the subtlety of treaded shoes squoosh the concrete.
None of us, Americans, know how to react. We don't have a point of reference. Nothing like this has ever happened in our lifetime. How can you believe in the the unbelievable? How can you respond to the "first time"? How can you do anything but gape like a dumb animal at the moment? The stupor of everyones' faces makes me think of Yogi Berra: "The future ain't what it used to be."
I never understood the motivations of 20-somethings in WWII that volunteered their bodies and blood. I am born to a cynical generation so it was alien to me. Well, now it's all different. Yesterday was the best demonstration of the force of ideology, its tragic sways and perfect sublimity. Ideology. We now know what some are willing to sacrifice for the sake of it and what is lost by it. And, we are left reeling from it today. I am beginning to realize that somethings are worth fighting for....
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