Remembering
Many in the world are reflecting today on the events of 4 years ago and the ways our lives have changed since then. Here is a message I sent out to friends and colleagues on September 11, 2002. I think it is still relevant today:
Dear friends:
On this raw, tender, exquisite day of reflection I wanted to take some time to send out a few thoughts to all of you. Here is an excerpt from a journal entry that I wrote on September 13th, 2001:
The planes are flying again; I’ve seen a few, mostly smaller ones that looked to me like cargo jets.
I was driving to work Tuesday when I heard a brief mention on MPR: “We have reports that a plane has hit the World Trade Center. No further information is available.”
…Time since then has been a long blur. That first day I attended a vigil at the flagpole on campus, watched CNN in the Roach Center Auditorium (where I saw my first video images of the crashes) and went home that night to watch even more TV even though I’d been listening to the radio all day. It still seemed like there might be some way I’d wake up and it wouldn’t have happened.
I stopped watching TV around 9:00 so I’d have a chance at sleep without nightmares. I woke up when Joe came to bed at 12:45, though, and he told me he’d been outside watching & hearing the military jets fly over. As he said, I didn’t know whether to be scared or comforted by the sound. But I listened for it throughout the night, and could hear it constantly.
I’ve been physically ill this week, with a sore neck and migraine-like headaches. I could barely turn my head yesterday. My shoulders don’t know what to do. They hover somewhere between relaxed and bunched up. They can’t find their natural resting place anymore.
Tomorrow has been declared a national day of mourning. On our campus, the bell will sound 100 times at noon. Now it sounds like each toll will represent 50 lives lost…. The media have been looking for counts all along, and I think it’s because it’s the only thing quantifiable in this whole mess. Everyone’s grasping for numbers, as if the numbers will help them comprehend what has happened. But nobody can truly grasp it; we only fear that our world has shifted in some fundamental way.
…I go for walks, trying to seek out beauty to counteract the images in my mind from TV and the internet. Tonight I walked past an apartment building, and through an open window could hear the words “bomb” and “terror” from a newscast.
…People have reacted with patriotism, with religion, and in some cases with anger. But I think that most of us just feel the numbness of horror and incomprehension. I feel as though all of my energy has been sapped. Any activity seems trivial or shallow. I attended a financial aid meeting at a hotel in Brooklyn Park today. We had topics for discussion at lunch, but instead we discussed the latest news. In the hotel lounge areas I could hear tidbits of conversations from several people on cell phones discussing when the airports might re-open or ways they might get to where they need to be. One woman was crying in the bathroom. The hotel monitors were tuned to CNN, and crowds gathered like moths to a flame.
I don’t know how to end this journal entry. I’ll probably read the paper or watch the news yet tonight. The planes continue to fly over, probably 6 or 8 since I began writing. Misha sits on the chair next to me, washing a paw. Joe is upstairs at his computer. For now, anyways, everything is passing for normal.
Many of us have sought ways to make our lives more meaningful in the past year. To me, that has meant a renewed appreciation for each day and a greater awareness of what is important to me. So I wanted to write to you all today and thank you for the ways you have touched my life. I also want to encourage you to take a moment today to reflect on the things that are important to you. Then tell someone. Say thank-you. Smile at someone who looks different from you. Open your eyes and really see the beauty around you.
Here’s another quote from my journal, from August of 2001. Unfortunately I don’t know who said it, but I’ve thought of it many times in the past year:
“We are conceived in passion, and we die in passion. Everything in between is our choice.”