This is a repost of what I wrote on the twentieth anniversary of 9-11-01. I find myself increasingly unable to think of anything new to say about that day. Maybe it has finally become a memory best expressed in older words than new.
I thought about writing a long remembrance of that horrible day, a walk-through of the weird mix of terror and business-as-usual that played out in the office where I was working at the time. I just…don’t want to do that.
I remember that for several days after I tried listening to music, and I just…couldn’t. It took, I think, until Friday when I was finally ready to listen to something. I chose one of the most emotional pieces of music I know, a work I played in my freshman year of college. It seemed, in terms of mood and title, appropriate: Elegy, by composer Mark Camphouse.
It was the saddest day I can remember as an American, and it’s even sadder now in retrospect as we went forth from that day and proceeded to learn all the wrong lessons and undertake all the wrong responses.
We went to New York City in 2015 for Thanksgiving, and we did go to “Ground Zero”. We weren’t there long, but we did want to see the place where this thing happened. It was a damp, cloudy, cold day…and for the location, somehow very beautiful.
There is always beauty to be found, eventually. I wish America would remember that more. Americans, myself included, are too quick to respond with anger and rage to the ugliness of the world.
I eventually wrote a short story in response to the emotions I was feeling at the time, called “The City of Dead Works”, and I used to post it annually here. I don’t do that anymore, but you can read it here. And please do read Sheila O’Malley’s post about one life that was lost that day.
