Four years ago I was in my dorm room, lying in bed and wondering if it was worth getting up. The janitor was talking to my neighbor outside my door, and I heard him say, "...flew a plane into the World Trade Center...." I got up to find out what he meant. Like a lot of people, I couldn't believe it at first.
We knew there were more planes, but not where. Nobody knew the scale of the damage, and even the World Trade Center planes we thought had killed about thirty thousand people.
The college held a meeting, to tell us what little they knew. It wasn't anything I hadn't learned online. Several people were crying, others clearly had been. On the way out a friend tried to talk at me and I snapped at her.
I don't know about anybody else, but prior to September 11th I didn't care about politics. It was a field fought over by idiots and con-men, and my only real political desire was not to have anybody tell me what to do. Suddenly, though, it mattered how we responded to this attack. I followed the news, developing opinions about what was going on. I began reading blogs.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Also history, religion, and, for lots of us, HTML. As a good liberal arts student, my reaction to the crisis was to check books out from the library. I read the Koran (as much of it as I could get through; its structure limits any satisfactory narrative), I read about the history of Islam and the modern actions which had led to the current structure of the Middle East. I started arguing with my classmates about what we should do next.
I don't know about anyone else, but I for one asked myself "Why do they hate us?" and found an answer. It just wasn't one any sane person would accept. Some of my classmates tried to argue that the victims of the attack were tacitly guilty, since they were participating in capitalism. As I recall, it was difficult not to hit them.
I didn't know what to do, then. I gave blood, like a lot of people, and donated some money. I studied Islam and the history of the Middle East. I tried to understand the people who flew planes into buildings full of innocents. I tried to understand the people who cheered when it happened, and the ones who made excuses for them.
I still don't know what to do.
So, where were you?
2 comments:
I was sitting on a balcony in the sun doing my math homework before class. I had gotten up early and meditated, and I felt good about that. It was a lovely peaceful day. Then my music tutor, Mr. Fasanaro, came up to me and said, "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I stared at him for a few seconds and then asked, "Was anyone hurt?" Part of the stupidity of that question came from the strangeness of the image. I figured it was an accident; I pictured a small prop plane getting lost, like a bird slamming into a window. But part of it was my own mind's selfish insistence that nothing was going to ruin my lovely peaceful day. I didn't want to hear about anyone else's agony. As I heard more, I started to understand a little better. I couldn't think of anything to do but go to the music library and play a requiem. I prayed, "please don't let this start a war." I never went to the meditation group again.
-- Fafner
I add the following as counter-point to what's been previously said. Neither corrections nor other alterations have been made. Name withheld.
Hi Odious--I wanted to offer my "where was " story about September 11th, but not as a public posting, as I fear it will sound rather flip and I truly mean no disrepect. That morning, I woke up for no reason absurdly early (7:30), and this always starts me off on a bad,--mean--foot. Cursing to myself, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and knew that my mother was up and in the kitchen because I could hear the television on in there, though I couldn't hear what was issuing from it. Louder than the TV was a clicking sound which sounded to me like the clipping of fingernails. I fumed as I brushed, cursing my mother's backwardness-"who f***ing clips their f***ing nails in the kitchen?!? What is this, Europe?" I'm sure my aura in those moments lookied like a snot-green mushroom cloud over my head. I stomped into the kitchen ready to tell her off, when I saw that she was sitting at the table, not clipping her nails but sneering at the TV, which sho wed both towers, ablaze and still upright.
"THose f***ing Arabs flew two planes into the world trade center, and one into the pentagon." (forgive the hateful and politically incorrect, not to say, inaccurate, generalizations--my home is not exactly the hub of California liberalism-especially in times of, as they say, "shit going down")
"Those were, those, like, really tall buildings, right? in NEw York?!?"
"That's right." Eyes roll disgustedly.
"What are we, at war or something?" I was really the bright one that morning......
Later that day I walked around the city. I had to walk west, as several blocks east of my block is civic center, and I figured that if the attacks weren't over, Gay-tolerant, infidel orgying, damnably charming San Francisco's City Hall would be high on any Muslim fanatic's hit list. I'm not sure why, other than that my mom's early remarks put it in my head, I assumed at that stage that the attacks were the work of religious, and specifically muslim, extremists (I think the official stance on the news was still that the credit was up for grabs still), but I did. It might also have been that the threats and the attacks in Africa Osama bin Laden had made in 1998 had left a big impression on me. I rememeber worrying that the world would come to an end, and here I am, a sparkling 18 year old, and oh, how, unjust and yet, oh, how poetic! The streets were deserted; many business had signs up in the window stating that several of the employees had loved ones in the affected areas. I went to a solitary open Kinko's determined to continue with my life and reprint some of my headshots, though I was also certain that theatre, yea, all entertainment, had ceased to be relevant, and my arrival in the industry was a moot gesture. The clerk had horrible breath, like after a sandwich stuffed with various herbs hippies and vegans are fond of.....George Bush rattled off cliches and rhetorical nothings on the TV. That night my sister and I ordered buffalo wings and pizza and watched New York smoldering on the news, as Peter Jennings said things, the content of which I don't remember but I recall that I found them soothing.
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