9/11/01 - THE DECADE AFTER (part 3 of a trilogy)
( Part one, and Part two.)
What got me through those first weeks was Zach. Most cats get annoying when they’re hungry - but Zach was a serious pain. I was just as stubborn - he got one scoop of food per day, no more, and not until nightfall. No matter how he begged. But he still begged, and hollered, and complained, for hours before.
And the attacks did nothing to change that. Zach was a cat, he didn’t care about what was happening. All he knew was that he was hungry, and I was the one with the opposable thumbs, so I had to feed him.
I’d get stuck in panic and worry, looking out the window, thinking about the missing-persons flyers I’d seen, smelling the smoke drifting up from the South, my mind stuck in nervous rabbitloops of what’s going to happen now will there be another attack where are they going to hit next who’s alive is anyone trapped in the site will they be able to put the fire out is there any -
“Miaaaow!”
I’d stare at Zach -- how could he think about food when people had died? “MIAAAOW!” he’d holler again, fixing me with a stare. Yeah, people had died - but he hadn’t, and he was hungry, dammit. I’d either put him off for another hour, or I’d numbly feed him early.
Because he was right - people had died, but he hadn’t, and I hadn’t. We were still alive. And I had a responsibility to take care of him, and to take care of me. To take care of the ones still living. Because that’s all I could do.
And I began the work of living the rest of my life.
--
Within a few months, I was doing okay -- mostly. Then I’d see or hear something that brought everything back - the smell of smoke, the confusion, the feeling of what’s next dread. When the city first did its “Towers Of Light” display six months after the attacks - the two huge spotlights pointing straight up from the Towers’ old footprint -- I was working on a play in Chelsea then, and believed myself to pretty much be past it. Before the show that night, I went to have a look. I went outside and looked south, to the spotlights reaching farther up into the sky than the Twin Towers ever did. “Huh, there they are,” I thought.
And a Flashback came and hit me right in the face.
I went back inside, wordlessly stalked by the cast lingering in the lobby, and went to sit in the house. Gary, my assistant, came after me a moment later; I’d told him I was going to see the lights, and he realized what I was going through. “You okay?” he asked. I nodded. “…You need a minute to yourself?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. He punched me on the arm and went out to the lobby. I joined everyone a minute later. No one talked about my reaction - they all knew. They’d all done the same thing here and there themselves.
--
There has never been a point, over the past ten years, when I’ve wanted revenge. Colin and I talked about that a month after -- “if Osama were here in the room with us right now,” I asked, “what would you do?” Neither of us said that we’d kill him. Colin didn’t even want to hurt him - I admitted to wanting to slap him upside the head, like Cher did to Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck - but the only other thing we wanted to do was ask “what the hell were you THINKING?” All I ever wanted from Osama was for him to tell me, in his own words, why he thought what he did was necessary, because I sure as hell didn’t get it, and I wanted to hear him TRY to defend himself.
I knew I’d never get that chance. But I wanted someday for him to be held to account - to hear him try, and fail, to justify what he did.
He’s dead now, and he never made that testimony. I came to my own two conclusions - first, that Osama had a profoundly fucked up world view; and second, that Islam was not what put it there.
--
It took me longer to adjust to the rest of the country’s reaction than it did to the incident itself.
For the first couple years, when I was traveling outside New York, within a few minutes of finding out I lived there, people asked me about it. My parents were working in a florists’ the year of the attacks, and when I visited that Christmas they brought me to meet everyone. After people heard that I was Their Daughter From New York, they started making small talk -- What did I do there? Oh, I worked in theater? Had I ever worked on Broadway?....I’d answer, making small talk. Then their faces clouded slightly, and I tensed, knowing what question was coming next - So, had I….been there that day? What was it like?
I knew they meant well. But hearing questions about the worst day of my life mixed in with cocktail-party questions made me seethe. I excused myself when we got back to my parents’, heading down to the basement to watch TV, trying to make myself forget again. But it happened again, and again.
It reached a head a couple years later, when I was reading the old web site Television Without Pity. There were a lot of pop-culture discussions on the site, and one was about “The Saddest TV Moment You Ever Saw.” People listed things like Ross and Rachel’s breakup on Friends, or Buffy’s mother dying, or Mulder realizing he’d failed another X-file.
Then people mentioned “watching the World Trade Center fall”. Other people chimed in to agree. I finally lectured then that look, for some people it wasn’t a TV moment, it was real life, so could we please not talk about the worst day of my real life like it was just a TV moment?
I got a couple of apologies. But then a couple days later - someone came back in to say The Attacks were A Sad TV Moment again.
It hit me that for the rest of the country, a “TV Moment” was exactly what it was. I was part of a new national minority - Eyewitness. I had been expecting people to think about the attacks the same way I was - but I had seen and heard and smelled and touched things that they hadn't, and they never would. And they would never be able to relate to the attacks the same way I did. And there was nothing to be done about that.
I started forgiving people who asked me about 9/11.
--
I’m still a bit touchy and fragile each anniversary; all the growing reminders every year to never forget and think of the attacks and let's look at the footage again stirs up too much, and I get cranky and snap at people. Jesus, I never will forget, because I was there. How could you forget a personal trauma? But for the rest of the country, it’s easy to forget until calendar flips around to September again.
But I only mind the people whose cries that we should never forget! feel like a way of boasting about their own patriotism. Look how fervently I remember. Look how patriotic I am. Isn’t that admirable of me?
I'm actually angrier at that mindset - the people who exploit the worst day of my life for their own ends, to prove their own superiority or to advance their own goals; most of which run counter to my own. Even worse, when I’ve called them on it - mentioning that I lived here during the attacks, no less - they would shout me down as a “liberal.” I’ve thought, recently, that some people deep down wish the attacks had been bigger - big enough to destroy New York City entirely. That way, they’d have the memorial to their patriotism-thoroughly sanitized of us inconveniently liberal New Yorkers.
A couple years back, I’d become Facebook friends with someone I went to high school with; she was the first person in my friendslist to post “never forget” as her status that anniversary. I just sighed and forgave her.
But then I saw a response from someone else I’d gone to high school with; how she was disappointed this was the very first thing she’d seen anyone mention about 9/11. Had we forgotten, she wondered? Not her, she’d gotten her kids up early to go to mass that day, all of them dressed up in red, white, and blue - they’d remembered, had the rest of us forgotten?
I took a deep breath and posted a response: “That day, I lived close enough to hear both planes as they hit. I could smell smoke for two full months afterward. Frankly, trying TO forget things about that day is the only way I’ve been able to stay sane.”
For the next hour, about thirty people responded to me, all saying some variant of “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.” Then everyone left me alone the rest of the day.
Good.
--
There’s one chance to talk about the attacks that I’m looking forward to. My niece is about three, and my nephew is six weeks old. I’m pretty sure that a few years from now, I’ll get a call- “Hi, Auntie Kim? I have a project for my history class, where my teacher says I have to talk to someone who saw something historical, and Daddy said that you lived in New York when 9/11 happened, so could I ask you about it for my project, please?....”
For Olivia and Nate, 9/11 won’t be the One Event That Overshadows All Others. It’ll be just one of many big events, and I’ll be mixed in with the other kids’ projects - the uncle who was in Chicago when Obama was elected, the grandpa who was in Vietnam, or maybe Iraq, the neighbor who was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. They’ll be witnesses to other things later - though I pray to God they’re never eyewitnesses -- but knowing that for them, 9/11 will be just one of a bunch of other things that happened is what made me realize that we will finally move on.
--
This year, on the 11th, I’ll be in the kitchen all day. Every year for the past couple, I’ve gotten a batch of tomatoes from the farmer’s market and spent a day canning them all - 20 pounds in one go, enough to last until the next season. I also have curly kale to blanch and freeze, a few pounds of pears and plums, and some fruit from last week that needs turning into jam before it goes bad.
It’s messy, tedious, time-consuming work, and if the bounty of tomatoes weren’t worth it I wouldn’t be doing it. My kitchen will get hot, I’ll get sweaty, I’ll get tomato goodge all over the table, I’ll scald myself blanching the kale, the rotting patches on the nectarines will make me queasy and I’ll have to clean the whole kitchen and take a long shower after. But peeling tomatoes and cutting up bruised plums will be annoying enough that I won’t have the time or headspace to think about the events of ten years ago.
And when I’m done, the day will have passed, and I will have a bounty of food stored away - tomatoes, kale, plum pie filling, fruit jam, pickled green beans, frozen peaches, ready to sustain me for the next few dark months of the year.
This world and this city have lived through horror and some chaos. I’ve seen it. But this world - the same world that produced Osama Bin Laden - has also produced perfect tomatoes and peaches. And this city - the same city where I met the guy who called the mosque a “snake pit”- is also where I met the friends I love, to share those peaches with. Rather than living with the chaos, I’ll spend the day embracing the good in this world - the peaches, the friends, the love, the light.
What got me through those first weeks was Zach. Most cats get annoying when they’re hungry - but Zach was a serious pain. I was just as stubborn - he got one scoop of food per day, no more, and not until nightfall. No matter how he begged. But he still begged, and hollered, and complained, for hours before.
And the attacks did nothing to change that. Zach was a cat, he didn’t care about what was happening. All he knew was that he was hungry, and I was the one with the opposable thumbs, so I had to feed him.
I’d get stuck in panic and worry, looking out the window, thinking about the missing-persons flyers I’d seen, smelling the smoke drifting up from the South, my mind stuck in nervous rabbitloops of what’s going to happen now will there be another attack where are they going to hit next who’s alive is anyone trapped in the site will they be able to put the fire out is there any -
“Miaaaow!”
I’d stare at Zach -- how could he think about food when people had died? “MIAAAOW!” he’d holler again, fixing me with a stare. Yeah, people had died - but he hadn’t, and he was hungry, dammit. I’d either put him off for another hour, or I’d numbly feed him early.
Because he was right - people had died, but he hadn’t, and I hadn’t. We were still alive. And I had a responsibility to take care of him, and to take care of me. To take care of the ones still living. Because that’s all I could do.
And I began the work of living the rest of my life.
--
Within a few months, I was doing okay -- mostly. Then I’d see or hear something that brought everything back - the smell of smoke, the confusion, the feeling of what’s next dread. When the city first did its “Towers Of Light” display six months after the attacks - the two huge spotlights pointing straight up from the Towers’ old footprint -- I was working on a play in Chelsea then, and believed myself to pretty much be past it. Before the show that night, I went to have a look. I went outside and looked south, to the spotlights reaching farther up into the sky than the Twin Towers ever did. “Huh, there they are,” I thought.
And a Flashback came and hit me right in the face.
I went back inside, wordlessly stalked by the cast lingering in the lobby, and went to sit in the house. Gary, my assistant, came after me a moment later; I’d told him I was going to see the lights, and he realized what I was going through. “You okay?” he asked. I nodded. “…You need a minute to yourself?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. He punched me on the arm and went out to the lobby. I joined everyone a minute later. No one talked about my reaction - they all knew. They’d all done the same thing here and there themselves.
--
There has never been a point, over the past ten years, when I’ve wanted revenge. Colin and I talked about that a month after -- “if Osama were here in the room with us right now,” I asked, “what would you do?” Neither of us said that we’d kill him. Colin didn’t even want to hurt him - I admitted to wanting to slap him upside the head, like Cher did to Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck - but the only other thing we wanted to do was ask “what the hell were you THINKING?” All I ever wanted from Osama was for him to tell me, in his own words, why he thought what he did was necessary, because I sure as hell didn’t get it, and I wanted to hear him TRY to defend himself.
I knew I’d never get that chance. But I wanted someday for him to be held to account - to hear him try, and fail, to justify what he did.
He’s dead now, and he never made that testimony. I came to my own two conclusions - first, that Osama had a profoundly fucked up world view; and second, that Islam was not what put it there.
--
It took me longer to adjust to the rest of the country’s reaction than it did to the incident itself.
For the first couple years, when I was traveling outside New York, within a few minutes of finding out I lived there, people asked me about it. My parents were working in a florists’ the year of the attacks, and when I visited that Christmas they brought me to meet everyone. After people heard that I was Their Daughter From New York, they started making small talk -- What did I do there? Oh, I worked in theater? Had I ever worked on Broadway?....I’d answer, making small talk. Then their faces clouded slightly, and I tensed, knowing what question was coming next - So, had I….been there that day? What was it like?
I knew they meant well. But hearing questions about the worst day of my life mixed in with cocktail-party questions made me seethe. I excused myself when we got back to my parents’, heading down to the basement to watch TV, trying to make myself forget again. But it happened again, and again.
It reached a head a couple years later, when I was reading the old web site Television Without Pity. There were a lot of pop-culture discussions on the site, and one was about “The Saddest TV Moment You Ever Saw.” People listed things like Ross and Rachel’s breakup on Friends, or Buffy’s mother dying, or Mulder realizing he’d failed another X-file.
Then people mentioned “watching the World Trade Center fall”. Other people chimed in to agree. I finally lectured then that look, for some people it wasn’t a TV moment, it was real life, so could we please not talk about the worst day of my real life like it was just a TV moment?
I got a couple of apologies. But then a couple days later - someone came back in to say The Attacks were A Sad TV Moment again.
It hit me that for the rest of the country, a “TV Moment” was exactly what it was. I was part of a new national minority - Eyewitness. I had been expecting people to think about the attacks the same way I was - but I had seen and heard and smelled and touched things that they hadn't, and they never would. And they would never be able to relate to the attacks the same way I did. And there was nothing to be done about that.
I started forgiving people who asked me about 9/11.
--
I’m still a bit touchy and fragile each anniversary; all the growing reminders every year to never forget and think of the attacks and let's look at the footage again stirs up too much, and I get cranky and snap at people. Jesus, I never will forget, because I was there. How could you forget a personal trauma? But for the rest of the country, it’s easy to forget until calendar flips around to September again.
But I only mind the people whose cries that we should never forget! feel like a way of boasting about their own patriotism. Look how fervently I remember. Look how patriotic I am. Isn’t that admirable of me?
I'm actually angrier at that mindset - the people who exploit the worst day of my life for their own ends, to prove their own superiority or to advance their own goals; most of which run counter to my own. Even worse, when I’ve called them on it - mentioning that I lived here during the attacks, no less - they would shout me down as a “liberal.” I’ve thought, recently, that some people deep down wish the attacks had been bigger - big enough to destroy New York City entirely. That way, they’d have the memorial to their patriotism-thoroughly sanitized of us inconveniently liberal New Yorkers.
A couple years back, I’d become Facebook friends with someone I went to high school with; she was the first person in my friendslist to post “never forget” as her status that anniversary. I just sighed and forgave her.
But then I saw a response from someone else I’d gone to high school with; how she was disappointed this was the very first thing she’d seen anyone mention about 9/11. Had we forgotten, she wondered? Not her, she’d gotten her kids up early to go to mass that day, all of them dressed up in red, white, and blue - they’d remembered, had the rest of us forgotten?
I took a deep breath and posted a response: “That day, I lived close enough to hear both planes as they hit. I could smell smoke for two full months afterward. Frankly, trying TO forget things about that day is the only way I’ve been able to stay sane.”
For the next hour, about thirty people responded to me, all saying some variant of “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.” Then everyone left me alone the rest of the day.
Good.
--
There’s one chance to talk about the attacks that I’m looking forward to. My niece is about three, and my nephew is six weeks old. I’m pretty sure that a few years from now, I’ll get a call- “Hi, Auntie Kim? I have a project for my history class, where my teacher says I have to talk to someone who saw something historical, and Daddy said that you lived in New York when 9/11 happened, so could I ask you about it for my project, please?....”
For Olivia and Nate, 9/11 won’t be the One Event That Overshadows All Others. It’ll be just one of many big events, and I’ll be mixed in with the other kids’ projects - the uncle who was in Chicago when Obama was elected, the grandpa who was in Vietnam, or maybe Iraq, the neighbor who was in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. They’ll be witnesses to other things later - though I pray to God they’re never eyewitnesses -- but knowing that for them, 9/11 will be just one of a bunch of other things that happened is what made me realize that we will finally move on.
--
This year, on the 11th, I’ll be in the kitchen all day. Every year for the past couple, I’ve gotten a batch of tomatoes from the farmer’s market and spent a day canning them all - 20 pounds in one go, enough to last until the next season. I also have curly kale to blanch and freeze, a few pounds of pears and plums, and some fruit from last week that needs turning into jam before it goes bad.
It’s messy, tedious, time-consuming work, and if the bounty of tomatoes weren’t worth it I wouldn’t be doing it. My kitchen will get hot, I’ll get sweaty, I’ll get tomato goodge all over the table, I’ll scald myself blanching the kale, the rotting patches on the nectarines will make me queasy and I’ll have to clean the whole kitchen and take a long shower after. But peeling tomatoes and cutting up bruised plums will be annoying enough that I won’t have the time or headspace to think about the events of ten years ago.
And when I’m done, the day will have passed, and I will have a bounty of food stored away - tomatoes, kale, plum pie filling, fruit jam, pickled green beans, frozen peaches, ready to sustain me for the next few dark months of the year.
This world and this city have lived through horror and some chaos. I’ve seen it. But this world - the same world that produced Osama Bin Laden - has also produced perfect tomatoes and peaches. And this city - the same city where I met the guy who called the mosque a “snake pit”- is also where I met the friends I love, to share those peaches with. Rather than living with the chaos, I’ll spend the day embracing the good in this world - the peaches, the friends, the love, the light.