That works too!
I haven't watched or listened to any coverage since I got to work. Seeing it on TV this morning before leaving for work, and listening to the radio while driving in, brought it all too close to the surface. Work gave me an excuse to get away from it for a while.
It is a gorgeous, cool, blue fall day. Exactly as gorgeous, and slightly cooler, than it was a year ago today.
I don't think I'll ever forget that day. I hope I won't, because forgetting would be wrong. I remember sitting in front of a computer in the lab, paralyzed, not by fear but by shock. I had no personal feeling of danger, and I knew most of the people I cared about were out of harm's way. I sat there, watching the headlines and pictures - I couldn't get to most of the articles because all the news servers were clogged - and wondering what was going to happen next. The hallways were filled with people; even the library had dug out an old antenna and tv set and had the news in black and white. I remember the faces of people standing there, books in their hands and bags forgotten. I remember the anger and fear in their eyes.
Later came the feeling of helplessness, as thousands of people died, some not fifty miles from where I sat, and there was literally nothing I could do to help. It felt wrong to leave the television screen, wrong to try to carry on as if nothing was wrong. Math class was almost a total wash. The professor lectured for over an hour before he gave up; I don't even remember what he said. I remember one of my classmates talking about how frantically she'd tried to get her parents - they lived a mile from the crash site in Shanksville. Another, who's parents lived in New York, told us how they had worried about her - hearing that a plane had gone down "somewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania, somewhere east of Pittsburgh" - a location that fitted us fairly perfectly.
I remember gathering on the lawn, RAs handing out candles that they'd made a special trip for, and me thinking how odd it was that this was the first year of the "no candles in dorm room" policy. The prayers, offered by any and all, for peace, for healing, for the safety of loved ones. I remember praying for justice, and then querying myself to make sure I hadn't meant 'revenge'.
Then, as the days went by, I saw more and more people drift into a combination of sorrow and conciliatory spirits. I didn't understand that; I was still mad. I wanted justice. I wanted those responsible to be found and locked up - or killed. Not for vengeance. That would have been elevating them to a status of human and in my mind, they lost that the moment the first airline was taken over. I did not hate them, but they were, I felt, dangerous, and we had to make sure they could never hurt anyone again.
Even at my school we felt the surge of patriotism. I wore red shirts with my blue jeans for weeks, wore out my flag shirt, cut a paper flag from the newspaper and hung it in my window. It wasn't jingoism. For the first time in my life I had truly considered what it was to be an American and I was proud. The heroism of the firefighters, police, ordinary citizens convinced me that we were not really any different from the men who fought at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. People are still heroes inside, waiting for the need. It takes something terrible to bring it out...
And that was what was really important about September the Eleventh. Everyone who died, everyone who lived, has a story. The people who wouldn't leave without their disabled co-workers. The firefighters who ran into the towers and not out. Todd Beamer and the Flight 93 heroes. There are so many individual stories, everyone can find one that they identify with particularly. Examples of heroism, nobility, and valor; examples of cowardice and even criminal behavior. The people who risk their lives, who spend days without sleeping looking for survivors rub shoulders with the people who steal money and drinks from evacuated bars.
So, a year later, I'm still angry. I still want justice, and I happen to think that the way we've been going about getting it is right. The world is not really any safer than it was on 9/11/01, but it's no more dangerous than it was on 9/10/01. We're just looking at things differently now,
And yeah. I'm still proud to be an American.