Maybe this is inappropriate, but for those curious as to how long 10 seconds can be (and in the spirit of the free-flow of information here) here’s the only clip of a 9/11 WTC falling victim I’ve ever seen. You don’t see them actually hit the ground (thankfully).
Begging your pardon, but I don’t believe I should feel any particular way.
Watching that clip brings all of the emotions of the original 9/11 back: curiosity, projection of yourself into that situation, relief that it’s not you, guilt that it is not you, and helplessness.
There are two important dates in my life that I can only account for five minutes of the entire day: my wedding, and 9/11. I just realized that saying that I had very little memory of my wedding could have a double, or tertiary, meaning which is not meant. What is it about huge important events that make you forget about them? Shock? Some internal mechanism that blocks the stress and images from planting root in your head?
If so, it has failed. Like most Americans, I am slightly obsessed with 9/11. I, like many others, were at work when it started taking place. It was only too late that I realized that this would be no ordinary day, or ordinary plane crash. At first, sitting at my desk, I was curious to know what was going on. I sensed something was going on. What did they just say on the radio? What were they talking about? I was torn between my staying at my desk and running into the break room to watch the TV. I was just hearing snippets as people walked by my desk.
It was when I answered the phone and it was a coworker’s wife who confirmed the news. She was in tears and said that the World Trade Center was “blowing up.”
Maybe that was the line for me, I don’t know, but there was definitely a line represented as a moment in time when I put my phone on “Do Not Disturb,” got up, feining, to get coffee and watched the TV.
I’ve never been in a situation where everything just falls apart, and the worst case scenario, past everyone’s worst imaginations, comes true. Whenever something bad is happening, there is usually some safety valve or backup stop that ends the situation before it gets any worse. Not that day. It just kept getting worse.
I was expecting the fire to go out. I was expecting to see everyone streaming out of the building, safe, like in 1993. I was waiting for the rescue helicopters to arrive on the roof. But none of it happened.
Okay, now what was intended to be a very simple post has turned into quite an emotional one.
I live no where near New York City. The plane that crashed in Shanksville is about 80 south east of me, but I have yet to visit the site. I don’t know anyone, who knows anyone, that died on 9/11. That’s as close as I got. But the people who jumped out of the building were wearing the same business suits that my father wears. The building that my mother works in resembles that of the World Trade Center. My brother had flown the day before.
At the time, call it shock, call it disbelief, but I was not exactly comprehending what was taking place. It was all happening all so fast that I feel that I actually missed it happening. I am actually angry at myself for not paying closer attention. But what was there to pay attention to, except a grotesque nightmare?
I find myself now craving the images of that day and the next, in order to analyze it slowly. Maybe then I can come to terms with it.