I haven't written, because I didn't know if I had anything to say that hasn't already been said, so well, by so many others. Everything I tried to write came out sounding trite or melodramatic. Is it possible to be melodramatic in times like these? Actually, I think it is. But anyway, I decided to try writing again, if only to relate my experiences of the past few days, which are probably very similar to those of many of you. People who don't live in NYC or DC or PA. People who don't have any direct friends or relatives who were involved. People who heard about friends of friends, or someone you went to college with escaping from the World Trade Center, or worse, not escaping. People who have just watched the whole thing unfold on television. This probably won't be of interest to many people, but in fifty years, when someone asks, "Where were you...?", I wanted to have a record of my thoughts at the time, and this is it.
On Tuesday, September 11th, I slept in late. That's not an unusual occurrence by any means. I stayed up until probably 4 or 5 AM the night before, watching a movie. So when I woke up after noon, it wasn't with a sense of panic or anything. I didn't have any recaps that needed to be done that day, so I really had no reason to get up any earlier.
When I finally did wake up, I grabbed a bottle of water and sat down to check my e-mail and start going through my bookmarks of sites I visit daily. The first sign that something was going on was an e-mail that Kymm sent to her notify list, saying that she was fine, and Tracing was fine. I thought, "Why wouldn't they be fine?" and then figured that she must have written about something in her journal, which I hadn't checked yet, and gotten a bunch of concerned e-mails. Maybe they were in a car accident or something. I was glad she was fine, and kept going through my new e-mail, which was mostly spam. Someone on one of my mailing lists sent out a link to a picture of a plane crashing into (I think this is what it said, but I've deleted the e-mail) the Empire State Building. I thought to myself (like so many people), "Oh, it must be a Cessna or other light plane that went horribly wrong somehow. I hope people weren't killed." Little did I know. Moving onto my personal e-mail, I had one from Jim, which just said to e-mail him when I got up. I wasn't sure what that was about, and I was starting to get a sinking feeling. Then I saw one from Molly, asking if I thought we should postpone our scheduled trip to Boston this weekend. Why would we? I realized that I had better find out more about this plane.
I quickly went to cnn.com, and that's when I knew something serious was going on -- the entire site had been stripped down to the bare essentials -- no graphics or anything. That was the scariest site I had seen in a long time. Just that blank white page, with no CNN logo or anything, made me realize that something was seriously wrong. I recognized that someone did that because the site was getting a ton of traffic, and wanted to minimize load time. And then I started reading the story. Okay, a plane crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Oh, wait. It was a commercial plane? Oh, my God! Another plane crashed into the other tower. That's not coincidence anymore. That's an attack. That's a declaration of war. Jesus. Am I safe right now? Is there a war going on? Before I even finished the story, I turned on the television. It was the weirdest thing ever. Every channel had news coverage. The ones that didn't had gone black for the day. News on VH1. News on FX. News on TBS and TNT. Every station had news. I had never seen that happen before. I read, and watched, but didn't quite absorb the horrific things that had happened while I slept.
My mind couldn't quite grasp the big picture, so I settled for thinking about how this affected me, personally. Maybe that's selfish, but I think it's human. Jim ICQ'd me, and asked me to call his parents and his brother, so I did, and left messages on their answering machines. His reaction was much like mine: "What the fuck?" It made me feel a little better to know that I wasn't the only one who was completely bewildered by the day's events. I started thinking more about friends and family. Did I know anyone who could have been on any of those flights? Or in any of the buildings that were hit? Jim had already told me that he was pretty sure that Stacey (who lives in Brooklyn) was at her school in Harlem at the time of the attacks, and I knew enough NYC geography to know that was pretty far from the World Trade Center. I thanked God that Sars had moved to Toronto a few weeks earlier. Little did I know that she was actually in NYC at the time, but she's safe. I thought of other MBTV writers and posters who I knew lived in or near Manhattan, and wondered how I could find out if they were okay. I checked the MBTV writers' message board and got updates on most of the NYC and DC-area writers. Everyone was safe. I thought of really stupid things, as you do. I wondered if either of the two shows that I was supposed to recap would be on that night, and decided that regular television programming wouldn't be on for quite a while. I wondered if they would tell the people in the Big Brother house. I told you they were stupid thoughts.
I decided to call my mom, just to make sure that everyone in my family was okay. My grandmother went into the hospital for more treatment for her leukemia last week, and was doing well, so she was sent home on Monday. My mom knew it was selfish, but she worried that if all of the blood supply was sent down to NYC, that my grandma wouldn't be able to get the blood transfusions she needed. My mom also told me that my cousin had flown from Maine to Detroit that morning to attend a conference, but he got grounded in Cincinnati, and would be hanging out there indefinitely. I'm still not sure if he flew out of Maine or Boston, but that's pretty scary. I didn't even know he was flying on Tuesday. My great-uncle has a nephew on the other side of his family who lives in DC and is in the military. His wife works in the Pentagon. When the plane hit, she ran outside, got in her car, and just started driving, and she didn't stop until she got to her husband's office. My mom and I talked about how this was somehow worse than Pearl Harbor, because there isn't a declared war going on, and it wasn't a military base that was hit. Not to somehow downplay the incredible heroism and courage of those who were at Pearl Harbor, but I just never thought that something remotely like it would happen in my lifetime, much less in my country. My mom said that she had been out in the yard that afternoon, and heard a plane overhead, and become incredibly frightened. She immediately tried to think of possible targets in the area, and all she could come up with was a nearby nuclear power plant. She never did see the plane, but she assumes that it was military.
I was more than a little freaked out at this point, even though I knew my friends and family were accounted for. It seemed like every time that I thought I had a sense of the scope of the situation, it got bigger. Now the Pentagon was attacked. Now the towers were collapsing. Now another plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Now I knew of people who were involved. I wondered if the attacks were over. I wondered who was behind them. Big picture information was spotty at best, and the news coverage kept focusing on the details -- the flight numbers of the planes, the footage of the planes hitting the towers, the smoking Pentagon, the whereabouts of the President. I remember thinking, "Should they be reporting the whereabouts of the President? I don't need to know exactly where he is. If I know, then they know, whoever they are." I knew that our country desperately needed a President -- at the very least, to tell us that everything was going to be okay. Weirdly, I missed Bill Clinton a lot. I wished that I could call up Bill and just have him tell me that things were fine, and that our country was great and mighty, and we would bounce back. I mean, he was President for most of my adult life. He is comforting to me. I'm not used to this new guy yet, and frankly, I don't think he's quite used to being President yet.
I realized that there was no new news coming in, so I started reading message boards, and personal accounts. And holy shit. Sarah was in New York. Sarah was near the World Trade Center. But Sarah is okay. She's posting on the boards. She's fine. She's safe. A little dusty, probably a lot freaked out, but fine.
Not long after that, I heard from Mary. She was a bit freaked out, because her sister was supposed to have surgery in Manhattan that morning, and no one in her family had heard from her. They weren't sure which hospital, and as you know, phone service into and out of Manhattan was pretty much impossible. I told her that, and that I was sure her sister was fine, since it seemed that most of the victims were those in and immediately around the World Trade Center. But I made her promise to let me know as soon as she heard something. She got back to me later -- her sister was in surgery when the plane hit. In surgery. Jesus. Imagine waking up from surgery to the news that your city is on fire?
Tara called me soon thereafter, and we both discussed how freaked out we were. She gave me a more complete update on Sarah, and assured me that Sarah's brother was okay, though he had to walk seven miles to get home to Queens. It felt really good to talk to another human being. I realized that I was kind of scared of being alone, and I had immersed myself into the news stories to try to compensate. Like if I had enough information, it would all start to make sense again, which obviously didn't work. I was also really, really mad that Jim's workplace didn't shut down. It seemed like most other places were, and I really wanted him next to me, where I could see and touch him, and know that he was safe.
Finally, Jim got home from work. I kept reading stories online and watching the news. I had to take a break eventually, but I kept flipping around the news channels, looking for something, anything, that would make me feel better. It wasn't happening.
The next day, when I woke up, I just felt sad. Sad for the tragedy. Sad for the massive loss of life. Sad for the people of Arabic or other Middle Eastern descent who live in the United States and might be the target of harsh words or worse in the next few weeks at the hands of idiots. Sad that my country would probably strike back, as soon as we figured out who was responsible, and sad that there would be further losses of life and further destruction. I know that a lot of people were very angered by the attacks, and intellectually, I can completely understand the desire for revenge, or payback, or to show someone that our country is still strong and won't take things lying down. But I'm sick of violence, and I personally don't want to see anymore. I don't really want to get into politics in this entry. I'm just saying that I don't know if father violence will prevent future attacks. Talk of "collateral damage" makes me nervous. But at times like this, I fully support my country and my President.
I went grocery shopping yesterday. I watched a documentary on first-year teachers last night on PBS, just to get away from the news coverage for a while. I went to the dentist this morning. These things did me a whole world of good. Just to get out of the house, and away from the television and computer, and realize that life does and will go on.
An ironic conversation that Jim and I had on Monday night. We were watching the first two episodes of Band of Brothers, and I commented that I was glad that there weren't any wars going on right now, because I didn't want him to get drafted. Then I decided that at 28, he was probably too old for any draft anyway.
I don't really have a conclusion here. Except to say this: so many of the stories that I have heard have made me proud to be an American right now. When I hear about all of the volunteers just showing up and refusing to leave until they are given something to do; when I hear about people waiting in line for hours and hours to give blood; when I look at the donation page on Amazon and see the numbers rising faster than I can refresh the page; when I read personal accounts that include tales of complete strangers helping others in whatever way they can; when I read message boards where people offer to open their homes to stranded travelers; when people from other countries let us know that we have their sympathy and support -- all of these things, and more, make me feel like people aren't all bad, and that in times of crisis, we can find reserves of strength that we didn't know existed.