“The
difficulty for a writer... is that it seems to be a law of language
that happiness, like goodness, is almost impossible to describe,
while conflict, like evil, is all too easy to depict.”
-W.H. Auden
Today
is, of course, the ten-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks
that killed nearly 3000 people in New York City, Washington, and
Pennsylvania. And like so many other writers, I turn to words as I
try to remember and process what happened.
I was
12 years old, and just beginning my seventh grade year at Dover
Middle School. And I didn't find out about the attacks until the end
of the school day. I can only assume that our principal had decided
that it was better for the general student population that we
continue functioning normally until the school day ended and we were
on our way back to our parents. I can only assume that there may have
been kids at my school whose relatives were on one of those planes
leaving Boston, and that those kids were called out of class and told
sooner. But none of it touched me during that bright sunny day of
learning and growth and new friends.
Art
class was the end of my Tuesday at Dover Middle School. I remember
distinctly that the period was winding down and we were beginning to
gather our things for dismissal when the principal came on the
intercom and asked teachers to settle their classes, that there would
be a special important announcement in two minutes' time.
Settling
middle schoolers down is never an easy prospect, but by the time the
principal's voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing the attacks
that had taken place earlier that day, we were all attentive. I don't
remember exactly what he said, but I believe he laid out the events
of the morning in simple terms: two planes hit the two World Trade
Center towers in New York City, and one had crashed into the
Pentagon, and one had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. I believe
that he urged us to go home to our parents, and not to watch TV. (Or
was it that my parents kept us away from the TV news? Ten years makes
the memory hazy sometimes.)
At any
rate, when the announcement was over, I do remember clearly that the
usual buzz of activity resumed in the classroom. Most people seemed
to just write it off in favor of the normal social and academic
concerns of seventh graders. I also remember one unusual event-- the
girl who sat next to me breaking down in tears because she was afraid
that her mom had been on one of the planes or in one of the WTC
towers. Since I never heard about it again, I can only assume that
her mom was okay.
As for
me, I remember just sitting quietly and listening to the
announcement, listening to the buzz, trying to absorb the news. I
knew little of the complexities of world affairs, had not yet heard
of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, knew little of Saddam Hussein beyond the
simple facts I had learned for geography bees in elementary school.
But something within me understood that forces greater than my
understanding had undertaken to hurt us, and that the world of
politics and foreign affairs that I was barely aware of, would be
changed.
It is
not just the hubris of a writer and memoirist that leads me to say
that I understood the significance of what was going on. My art
teacher saw the look on my face and told me after class that she
could tell that I knew what was happening. I don't think I could
possibly have understood fully what was happening-- as I said, my
knowledge of the world was limited, and I hardly had any information
about the day's events.
But
what I do know is that what I felt that day when I heard the
announcement is a feeling that has continued through to today: a deep
quiet inside me, a space where I must retreat to reflect on the chaos
and sometimes evil of the world, a space where I can mourn and wish
for the peace of the world. I felt it again the night that bin Laden
was killed. On 9/11/01, many felt anger; on May 1, 2011, many of
those same people felt great joy and release. I understand their
anger and joy on the respective nights, for the attacks struck home
for millions of people-- both those who directly lost loved ones and
those who lost their basic sense of safety. The death of bin Laden
was a necessary catharsis for many, and I cannot deny that the world
is almost certainly a better place without him.
But I
felt the same sense of deep quiet on May 1 of this year that I did on
September 11, 2001. I found it neither a catharsis nor a crime,
neither justice nor vengeance.
It's
just what is. Not what should be, but what is, right now. The world
has a way of changing at unexpected, often inopportune, moments, and
we have to be aware of what happens as it goes, and keep living our
lives. Our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world live in
societies much more dangerous than ours, and yet life goes on there
too. People are born, people die of natural causes and not, people go
to school and get married and have more kids and go to jobs and to
the grocery stores.
I
guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe what I realized that day
and carry through until now is this: that we don't live in a peaceful
world, but that the world we live in has plenty of places where peace
and normalcy reign. Especially here in the United States we have that
to be thankful for. And when violence happens, the best we can do is
just keep going. I choose to mourn violence in all its forms, but I
give thanks for the peaceful moments in my life and in the lives of
those I love-- like the one right now where I resort to words of
reflection to absorb my feelings about this national day of
remembering.
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