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mynewplaceIt's a day for rememberances, for many people. And for many reasons. My parents don't dwell much on 9/11. To them, I am still the embodiment of that day, and as I am with them all the time in one form or another, they do not give lingering thought to the tragedy that befell our country four years ago. My own feelings about the day are mixed. There's a bit of childish resentment that "It was MY day first!" but primarily I choose to become a recluse on this day most every year. I always take off work if my birthday falls during the week, and was off work in 2001. I can remember coming home after taking Scarlett to school, and turning on the t.v. At first I thought I had found some sort of movie by mistake, but quickly recognized voices of current newscasters, and lay on the couch curled in the fetal position as I watched the day become infamous. I remember the feeling of impending doom at the sight of the first plane. I remember thinking "This isn't all, this is no fluke, this is no accident. What's next? The Hoover Dam? The Capitol? The White House?" But what was next was as terrible as anything I could have imagined. I saw the plane coming, and braced myself as I watched the impact, over and over. The incredulity in my head was echoed in the voices of those newscasters. I almost went to school right then to pick up Scarlett. I'm not sure why I didn't, but I believe there was some local newscaster discouraging such behavior, and that seemed like a voice of reason to me.
I remember calling the office, and my friend Karen telling me they were watching t.v. there, too. I briefly tried to imagine being in the office while this was going on. Couldn't wrap my mind around it. I remember waiting all day, flinching at every sound on the television, just waiting for the terrorists to do something ELSE. Surely, surely my mind rationalized, they won't stop at this.
My boss was stranded in Utah, because the airports shut down. I worried about how our newest employee, who is Syrian, would be treated at the office that day, and the next. I remember with horror the photographs that circulated, of people jumping to their deaths. There are few things that I find as mentally violating as a photograph of someone who is dying or has just died. They make me angry that people would share them, because that is the ultimate of intimate private moments, in my mind. I was angry a lot at those damned email forwards.
I remember going to Mass with Pavanne several Tuesdays in a row after that, just for the comfort of the vaulted ceilings, the marble floors, the hard pews that creaked when you sat down, worn smooth from generations of Charlestonians. The holy water was cool on my forehead. The thing I remember most about that time was a beautiful October day, walking down the street of Charleston after leaving lunchtime Mass. A plane flew overhead, and everyone I could see stopped dead in their tracks. We all stood with necks craned, and watched as it crossed the sky. I shook, with some unnameable fear, and with relief. Relief? Because that plane was a sign that we were strong enough to continue.
I don't have a lot of further reflection on what developed from that fateful day. My life has gone on. I've been searched at an airport, since that time. But I have not felt ANY real ramification from the events of this date on 2001. I have been nervous for my Syrian co-worker, who opted to stay an additional day out of town, rather than fly home on September 11, 2002. I have had qualms at telling another co-worker in Iraq that our new employee was Muslim. But overall, my life has been unfazed.
In other news, my mother has asked me to come to dinner this afternoon. She's having guests, a couple who are missionaries to China. bleh But I agreed to go, because they are going to eat later in the day, instead of at noon. I said I'd try and pull myself together, since she was having company, and she sounded very relieved to hear it.
A few hours later my dad calls, to wish me a happy birthday. (He is in North Carolina, remember? Has no contact with my mother.) And he says "So, is your mom having anything for your birthday?" We get into this conversation about how no, she isn't, and that's fine with me, and she's having guests. He says "Well, she might be having a surprise birthday party for you or something." Which sent a quiver of fear through me. I HATE surprises! No. Really. DESPISE them. I told him so. And of course told him that I didn't expect anyone to get me presents (while he simultaneously tells me the card is in the mail) and that I didn't mind late cards, because sometimes its a bit of a letdown, after 'the day' is over. So those late ones are extra sweet.
Anyway, I'm afraid now, to go to my mother's. I'm going to have to go early, so I don't appear to these missionaries (if there ARE indeed missionaries) that I am a neglectful daughter who only comes to her mother's house to eat, and ships her daughter off every weekend to 'go to church' with mawmaw and pawpaw, thereby also neglecting her child's religious upbringing. Faaar be it from ME to tell them, or my parents, that I'm actually contributing by reinforcing the idea that God is both male AND female, and tempering her Baptist notions with some more open-minded ones of my own.
Keep your fingers crossed, kiddies, that there's no surprise in store for me.
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Date: 2005-09-11 11:00 am (UTC)YAY!
my old roomie's birthday is 9/11 too... :)
-j
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Date: 2005-09-11 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 07:20 am (UTC)Kisses!
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Date: 2005-09-12 07:25 am (UTC)