Thoughts and Remembrance

In two days the calender will read September 11, 2011. It is a Sunday, and the weather forecast is 90 and sunny, that could turn into a beach day. It is the first full day of the NFL. And yes, it is also the ten year anniversary of September 11, 2001, just in case you live under a rock and didn't know.

This is the most difficult blog post to date. I've been trying to write this since 9 a.m. and it's now nearly noon and I'm nowhere close to being done.

 I've ranted and raved, I've called for action, I've demanded we all get on with our lives, I'm pretty sure I insulted everyone at one point. I've been on a deleting rampage, as I've sat here trying to make it sound like I'm not a lunatic. I've watched more 9/11 tributes on YouTube than is probably healthy. And I've sat here trying to figure out why I'm writing about Sept. 11.

And I've come to this conclusion: I have to. I apologize if this isn't as sensitive, or whatever else you were hoping for, but I'm doing the best I can. I'm only a writer.

September, the month when trees begin thinking of changing colors, and summer is still hanging around. Children and teachers are going back to school. College football and the NFL are beginning. Americans are happy when they have their football.

You begin thinking of apple orchards and cider mills. It's September! One of the nicest months of the year! Sunny and warm but with no mud like April, and not sweltering like July. It's not cold like October or November.

You take one last vacation, or go out on the boat one last time. You have barbecues, and bonfires, and try to catch the last lightning bug of the season.

Sept. 11 is a date. Prior to the year 2001, it was no different than Sept. 10 or Sept. 15. Except, now, like December 7, 1941 it has meaning.

We're coming up on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, December 7, a date that will live in infamy. While, President Bush's speech didn't give us a powerful line like Roosevelt's did, Sept 11, or 9/11, will also live in infamy.

Like my grandparents can tell you where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed I can tell you where I was when the announcement came that planes flew into the World Trade Center. I was fourteen, and in my second or third week of high school.

We were in the gym for an assembly, and then reported back to our second hour classes to kill time before our next period. I had gym, so we went across the hall to the room the wrestlers used for practice. The announcement came over the PA system that planes had crashed into the WTC.

Full disclosure, I didn't know what the WTC was. Yes, I knew of the towers, I just didn't know what they were called. I blame being a self centered teenager from the Midwest.

Unlike my grandparents who were given the news about Pearl Harbor from the radio. I was three blocks away, thanks to CNN, FOX News, NBC, ABC, and the Internet. Watching and rewatching the planes, the smoke, the people screaming, the fire, and feeling sick.

For hours we were glued to TVs.  From the time we heard the news until we went to bed we sat there silently, watching the news in disbelief as the towers fell, expecting the sky to fall with them. This did not have to be described, this was not a prepared news segment, with a script like in 1941.

We saw the smoke rise out of rubble at the Pentagon, and listened to reporters talk about the heroes in flight 93 who took down the terrorists, and themselves, in a field in Pennsylvania.

We heard the screams of people on New York streets, and the people covered in ash, dust, and dirt running for their lives. We saw people being carried out of rubble, jumping out of buildings, and firefighters running in. We watched as the towers fell, leaving the New York skyline, and ourselves empty.

We weren't the only country to feel the effects of the Attacks. More than 80 countries had someone working in the towers. Countries from around the world held memorial services for the victims. The guards at Buckingham Palace played our national anthem. A song about us defeating the them!

 Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, countries we fought against 60 years before, reached out to help. Reached out with memorials of their own. For people they never met, for a city that had been shaken past its core, for a country who couldn't come to grips with it just yet.

It's just an example of how shaken the world was after the attacks. How we just wanted to grasp onto someone to make sure we were sill here.

If I were to make a list of everything we, as a nation, and as humanity, lost that day it would stretch from here to eternity. Believe me, I've tried.

Innocence was lost on 9/11, and unfortunately it wasn't the only thing we lost. I think we lost our sense of safety, our invincibility, our selfishness, the thoughts and ideas that we were better than our neighbor. We lost loved ones. I think we lost the inability to care because somebody's tragedy didn't effect us. Or their pain wasn't as great as our own.

We banned together, holding each other's hands during seventh inning stretches, while we sang God Bless America. We wrapped ourselves in our flag, and waved it from every building, light pole, balcony, and news stand we could find.

We were pissed and we were going to fight!

In the last ten years, the fight has left us. The flag is now a symbol of despair, rather than hope. People are out of jobs, prices are rising, houses are being foreclosed on, oil is being fought over, and our politicians are beyond a hot mess.

I feel like in the ten years since the WTC has fallen we're still focusing on what we lost. Our lost innocence, our loss of security, our loss in the global market, our loss of jobs. News segments are focusing on children who lost a parent.

I think the news is truly trying to depress us, and doing a hell of a job.

What about talking about what we gained? I know the wounds are deep, and I know we're going to be scarred for a long time. And it might take us forty years until we can think about Sept. 11 as a significant day in September without wanting to cry, or have three week news marathons about the event.

Or maybe, just maybe, we won't have to wait that long. Maybe, we can think of what we gained from the terrorist attacks, and just stop. Stop blaming, and hating, and thinking you are more important than everything and everyone else.

We're left to hold memory of those who did not survive, and it's not because we need to accomplish anything great. It's so we can accomplish what we started ten years ago. Being nice to each other, and fighting for what we want. Fighting for a country we can be proud of. Not just in war, but here at home.

I feel like we've been lying down, waiting for people to tell us it's okay to live again. It's okay to start living again, scars and all.