<Rainbow Heron>

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

September 11, 2001: my story

Since I didn't have a blog back then and since I've never really written down my feelings or experiences on the subject, I decided a while back to deferr it until now. Only seems fitting right?


Well, now that it's a year later, and anxieties are running high for tomorrow, I guess I'll go ahead and spill about what happened to me last year.

Like for many of the big worldwide events that have happened over the last 6 years or so, I was asleep in bed when it happened and Mom came in to wake me up to tell me about it. This time, I think I had gone to bed around 2-4am again and was naturally still asleep when Mom came upstairs to tell me this time. I think it was either 9:30 or 10:30 and I was more than half asleep and wanted to get sleepier when she told me. She said that the two towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed and that one wall/part of the Pentagon had too.

Now being both half asleep and an avid Star Wars fan, my mind interpreted that as twin towers of the Trade Federation had exploded and hooray for the Naboo. I never really knew what the World Trade Center was anyway, I thought it was some one large building somewhere so it was the news of the Pentagon that got me more. And why wouldn't it? I was born in Washington DC and I still consider it to be my home turf, any attack there I feel to a fault to be a personal slight.

I sleepily looked at the clock and seeing how it wasn't lunchtime yet, I said "Good thing it wasn't peak hours" and Mom said "Yes it was, everyone had just gotten in to work." Well that got me to sit up a little bit more. My heart sank as both shock and depression hit in. Being a natural disasters junkie and also wanting Mike Roarke's job (Tommy Lee Jones as the head of the citywide emergency management office in Volcano) I was also morbidly curious.

I can't remember if I went back to sleep or if I when ahead and got up, but I did go downstairs and stay glued to the tv all day and night long. I don't remember if we kept it on NBC or CNN, but the tape Mom & Dad had put in shows it as being on NBC...at least for the first hour or so, I haven't watched the whole thing. For the next couple of months, the depression weighed on me for quite some time. I'm a post-traumatic stress disorder survivor (in remission actually) so with all of the above factors combined with that made me watch the footage over and over, as much of it as I could, and also collect some of the magazines that soon started coming out.

I've always liked the patriotism of the 4th of July and I'd never seen a 4th of July spread out over a 4-6 month period before. In my city, the Boy Scouts had planted American flags on either side of the busiest streets throughout the city. The flags all over the place reminded me of my home in DC and I didn't want it to end. What I did want to end was the threat of these terrorists. I still pray for their capture and for justice to be served.

I had voted for Bush in the election and missed his inauguration by about 4 minutes cuz I was asleep and for the previous months, I was beginning to have doubts about the man being in office. Not anymore. I also hadn't really paid enough attention to politics in my life so I was happy to see the President acting like the down-to-earth guy that he is when in that pep rally-like spirit he spoke at Ground Zero. The DBF'er in me was thrilled. I was happy to see Americans coming together to fight this war that needs fighting. But I had not expected to fight one myself: online.

In the support newsgroup I frequent, I had already fought hard, long, and fast against one troll in that group (not my first online) and no sooner had the terror attacks happened than the group was inundated with cross-postings of all sorts regarding the attacks, Islam, the war, and people just generally being outraged. One person in particular was listening more to his testosterone than his brain (if he has one, and if he does, he certainly wasn't proving it) and I countered him. When he finally seemed to have left, he came back and attacked me personally. Been there, done that. So I got him again and he finally shut up and went away.

Now, this isn't some ego thing here, in every troll I've encountered, I've learned one more way in defending myself against verbal and written attacks. This one, like the one I'd fought before in this same newsgroup, helped me step up to the plate in a fast yet precise manner. I haven't heard from him since and I don't wish to either.

Many people were scurrying about in many different ways back then and still are. I don't think I've ever really been afraid throughout this whole mess, just majorly depressed overall and personally outraged in during that trollwar. With my illnesses I've had to stop making emotional investments in certain areas, just cuz I know I'd probably not be able to handle the overload. Maybe part of it is the fact that I never really knew the Twin Towers, and having lived in the major metropolitan area of Washington DC, we're used to knowing various emergency procedures. Mom & Dad knew they would put DC on lockdown before it was reported on tv. But still, it was sobering watching all those millions of New Yorkers make the migration north. All of them walking. No cars were on the bridges that day, and no lights were on Broadway that night.

The song "Broadway" by the Goo Goo Dolls (a favorite of mine) came to mind when they started announcing all of the closings, and it came to mind again when Dad & I drove thru NYC on our way to Rhode Island just after New Years. We were a long way away from downtown at a gas station, and I could still see the dust from Ground Zero.

Just this past month while unpacking from our most recent move, I came across some photos I had taken during a bus tour back in the summer of 1994. I had 4 pictures that had the Twin Towers in them. I remember that day the tour guide had said "and here's the famous New York City skyline" like it wasn't all that special. I'd never seen the skyline before or even considered it famous back then and took the shots. Even today, I can look at the skyline on tv and not really be able to tell where the "hole" is where the towers used to be. It just wasn't something I was close to. Which is partly why I've been so upset that whenever September 11 is mentioned, the Pentagon is barely named at all. I'm sure the folks outside Pittsburgh/Shankesville feel the same way.

September 11 was a big day for me in another way too. Later that day, I went to have 6 inches cut off of my hair. Until this past year, I'd never cut so much off at one time. You can guess what the topic of conversation was.

In the early wake of 9/11, there was also much talk about a possible second wave of attacks. When I heard of the anthrax cases, I (like so many) almost immediately thought that this was it. When we learned who the targets were, I sadly and almost breathlessly said to myself that this was it. I saw the look in Tom Brokaw's eyes when he talked about it- he knew somone had taken a bullet for him and he being a newsman was being forced to deal with it publically by reporting on it. My heart went out to him. While I like it whenever I see public figures "being human" rather than "celebrities", it really got me to see how shocked and rattled he was. Too close to home. Just too close to home.

Well, we do now? We find those responsible, fix our mistakes, we learn from this whole mess, and we prepare, inform and be on the lookout for next time. We also share what we've gained with the rest of the world, because long after Al-Qaeda's death and America's learning to share its world power, there will still be terrorists who seek to do harm. So the question is: how do we deal with it next time? Answer: God willing, there won't be a next time.

posted @ 8:45 AM  |   0 comments  |