The obligatory entry

[magid]

I remember a year ago, though only certain things stand out:
A call from a cow orker who knows I tend to have a browser open, asking me to check the news, since something was mentioned on the radio, but it was fragmentary.
No television in the office, not really believing the initial reports on the radio, then the horrible news multiplying in horrible ways.
The news web sites all blocked up from everyone trying desperately to f ind out what's happening. I was able to get through only to the BBC site.
Queue coming into my office, upset because his grandparents were in a potentially risky area, and he had no way to contact them, since they'd just moved.
Complete and utter disbelie f that went on for so long, just the ever-increasing magnitude of it all keeping the shock fresh.
Wondering if all the people I know in and around NYC were ok. Not trying to call since I assumed that the lines were completely tied up already.
I know I ma naged to get some work done, paper pushing of some sort.

And then I went home, and out for a bike ride, pushing myself harder and harder, faster and faster, as if that could change any of the reality that was.
And then going, not on a Wednesday, to Generic House, which had opened its doors. After a while, we resorted to games, pulling our attention away for some relief from the pain and distress.
And Wolf telling me that a cousin who had worked across the street was home safe.
And, perversely, wanting to have had this touch me more personally, so I could channel my upsetness into more familiar paths.
And realizing that night that I had hugged no one, and I had needed to.

And as time goes on, it's like how I think of my aunt Helen: I know, intellectually, that she's dead. But she was an infrequent actual presence in my life, so I sometimes forget, thinking "Helen and Bob," rather than just "Bob." But it's a constant for him, as it's a constant for so many people.

And in the aftermath, more flags appear than I have ever seen in my life, and stores change their signs to include patriotic messages. And it all feels jingoistic to me, not healing at all. More scary knee-jerk stuff, rather, leading to acceptance of whatever is necessary to get the war going, to get the bad guys (never mind that we managed to get a bunch of innocent people, too).

And a year later, there are ceremonies galore. And I don't understand, not really: if I am grieving over someone lost, that would feel more a private thing to be shared with friends and family, not a thing I would want to do with crowds of strangers. Perhaps I am indoctrinated into Jewish grieving rituals, which are designed to be of lessening intensity over the course of the first days, week, and month, leading up to the cessation of official mourning after 11 months. And it is more likely that people are remembered for their lives than for how they died. But today is just a constant replay of how these people died.

Maybe I'm just a jaded liberal, always wary of knee-jerk retaliation and warmongering and "America right or wrong" and judging people harshly. I wish it was clearer to me just what happened, so I could be comfortable with what our country has done to retaliate. But I'm not.

Perhaps I read too much fiction, where things do tend to be less ambiguous, so when something this cataclysmic happens, I'm naturally expecting some nice clear resolution. But real life [tm] is never that simple, especially in the throes of the events.

[Most useful commemoration information: the MFA, JFK library, and the Aquarium are free today.]

[Later addendum: how could I forget how I felt that perhaps now Americans would understand what it can be like to be an Israeli, when a workaday world goes mad, and people die. Yes, there were more people dead from this than any one suicide bombing in Israel. But as a percent of the population, Israel is far beyond what we've gone through.
And yet, the US still wants Israel not to crack down on terrorists. Do as I say, not as I do. Is someone else's pain not as important?]
t

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I hear you.

From what I can see, the people who cared for people who died don't want this orgy of public grief, all these people trying to yank their feelings from them in trying to share them. I share your weirded-out-ness at all the ceremonies of today.

And, hey, if you want it: *hug*.

A.