(no subject)
September 11, 2001 is the “where were you” day of my generation. For my grandparents it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor. For my parents, the assassinations of John F Kennedy, his brother Robert and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. For me, it is the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 5 years ago today.
I live on the East Coast of the US, about 40 minutes drive north of Washington DC, and maybe 4 hours south of NYC. I was still with my ex-husband then. Our 6th wedding anniversary was September 9. We wanted to go away and had talked about a couple of options. It was the first time in our married life that we could actually afford a real vacation over our anniversary. My ex offered to take me to New York to see Les Mis or Phantom on Broadway. These are my 2 favorite shows and I should have jumped at the chance. I had no premonition or sense of Impending Doom or even Not A Good Idea. I just decided I’d rather go to Williamsburg where we’d gone for our honeymoon instead. My sister and her fiancé (now husband) were living with us at the time and they were keeping our 3-year-old son so we could go alone.
It wasn’t a bad vacation. We had good weather and very little agenda. Because we’d been before there was no sense of Must See Everything. We caught up on things we hadn’t seen in previous trips and generally took it slow and easy. That morning we slept in and didn’t turn on the TV in our hotel room. I’d bought a CD of colonial music that was playing in the car so we didn’t hear the radio either. About 11 am we wandered into someplace to get breakfast (probably Cracker Barrel - this is my ex we’re talking about) and when the waitress finally got the food to the table she apologized for the delay, but everyone was glued to the radio. I asked why and she just looked at me for a minute then told me what had happened. I thought she must be mistaken. We ate then went back to the car and turned on the radio. She wasn’t joking; 2 planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC, a 3rd into the Pentagon and a 4th in a field in Pennsylvania. We started making phone calls. My mother had picked up my son and nephew from the babysitter, they were with her. My sister and BiL were still at work. My father works for the government; I don’t know what he does exactly but I do know that he did not have to stay on duty and he was one of the last people out of his office that day.
We couldn’t leave Williamsburg. It’s south of DC and there’s no way to get from there to our home without traveling the DC Beltway and that just wasn’t a good idea. I was on the wrong side of the city from my son. That’s what upset me the most - that I couldn’t hold my baby. We went home the next day. There were almost no cars on the road but there were a lot of covered dump truck with the extra wheels down. The drivers honked and waved when they saw the flag on my car antenna. We passed Andrews Air Force Base, the only place we saw planes in the air. Military planes, not passenger jets. We lived in the flight path of a large airport and it was strangely quiet with no planes flying over the house.
After a few days I started turning off the news. I couldn’t watch any more - there was nothing new, they’d found as many survivors as they were going to and I was tired of the speculation and blame games the media on both sides of the political fence were playing. I was at a point in my life where I wasn’t feeling much of anything in the way of emotions. I was generally numb, not just about this but about everything. People all over the country were reacting to the emotions of a disaster. The realization that life is short and tragedy can strike on a clear sunny day hits people hard sometimes. People got married, they got divorced, they had babies, they changed jobs…mostly they cried. I couldn’t cry. I wanted to. I wanted to cry, to scream, anything to get the lump out of my throat. But the tears wouldn’t come.
I cried this morning. I’m crying as I write this. For the men and women who were killed that day. For the soldiers killed since then as our leaders chase shadows and fight the ghosts of 15 centuries of intercultural enmity. For the partners and children and parents and friends of every person that didn’t come home, that will never come home. I cry for my country and I cry for the world. But mostly I cry because it’s not over yet.
I live on the East Coast of the US, about 40 minutes drive north of Washington DC, and maybe 4 hours south of NYC. I was still with my ex-husband then. Our 6th wedding anniversary was September 9. We wanted to go away and had talked about a couple of options. It was the first time in our married life that we could actually afford a real vacation over our anniversary. My ex offered to take me to New York to see Les Mis or Phantom on Broadway. These are my 2 favorite shows and I should have jumped at the chance. I had no premonition or sense of Impending Doom or even Not A Good Idea. I just decided I’d rather go to Williamsburg where we’d gone for our honeymoon instead. My sister and her fiancé (now husband) were living with us at the time and they were keeping our 3-year-old son so we could go alone.
It wasn’t a bad vacation. We had good weather and very little agenda. Because we’d been before there was no sense of Must See Everything. We caught up on things we hadn’t seen in previous trips and generally took it slow and easy. That morning we slept in and didn’t turn on the TV in our hotel room. I’d bought a CD of colonial music that was playing in the car so we didn’t hear the radio either. About 11 am we wandered into someplace to get breakfast (probably Cracker Barrel - this is my ex we’re talking about) and when the waitress finally got the food to the table she apologized for the delay, but everyone was glued to the radio. I asked why and she just looked at me for a minute then told me what had happened. I thought she must be mistaken. We ate then went back to the car and turned on the radio. She wasn’t joking; 2 planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC, a 3rd into the Pentagon and a 4th in a field in Pennsylvania. We started making phone calls. My mother had picked up my son and nephew from the babysitter, they were with her. My sister and BiL were still at work. My father works for the government; I don’t know what he does exactly but I do know that he did not have to stay on duty and he was one of the last people out of his office that day.
We couldn’t leave Williamsburg. It’s south of DC and there’s no way to get from there to our home without traveling the DC Beltway and that just wasn’t a good idea. I was on the wrong side of the city from my son. That’s what upset me the most - that I couldn’t hold my baby. We went home the next day. There were almost no cars on the road but there were a lot of covered dump truck with the extra wheels down. The drivers honked and waved when they saw the flag on my car antenna. We passed Andrews Air Force Base, the only place we saw planes in the air. Military planes, not passenger jets. We lived in the flight path of a large airport and it was strangely quiet with no planes flying over the house.
After a few days I started turning off the news. I couldn’t watch any more - there was nothing new, they’d found as many survivors as they were going to and I was tired of the speculation and blame games the media on both sides of the political fence were playing. I was at a point in my life where I wasn’t feeling much of anything in the way of emotions. I was generally numb, not just about this but about everything. People all over the country were reacting to the emotions of a disaster. The realization that life is short and tragedy can strike on a clear sunny day hits people hard sometimes. People got married, they got divorced, they had babies, they changed jobs…mostly they cried. I couldn’t cry. I wanted to. I wanted to cry, to scream, anything to get the lump out of my throat. But the tears wouldn’t come.
I cried this morning. I’m crying as I write this. For the men and women who were killed that day. For the soldiers killed since then as our leaders chase shadows and fight the ghosts of 15 centuries of intercultural enmity. For the partners and children and parents and friends of every person that didn’t come home, that will never come home. I cry for my country and I cry for the world. But mostly I cry because it’s not over yet.