9/11/08

It's hard to believe that seven years have passed since 9/11/01. It seems cliche to ask the "where were you" question, but it's soooo hard to avoid. Here's my story: I had just started seminary at Yale. We were only 2 or 3 weeks into the school year. I was miserable. Happy to be in seminary - finally; but very sad to be away from my boyfriend (who is now my husband). Before him, my feeling about dating and men was pretty well summarized in the phrases: "the less I see you the more I like you," and "absence makes the heart grow fonder." But with Chris it was completely different, and being away from him made me turn inside and I ended up feeling very isolated from my new school and classmates. The other reality of all of that was that I wasn't very focused on my school work. Having been in grad. school for 4 years at that point, it felt pretty easy for me to kind of skim the surface - knowing the system so well, I was already becoming complacent enough in my ability to do just enough to get by and not much else.

However, the night before that fateful Tues. morning, I had had a 'come to Jesus' talk with myself and decided I didn't like taking that path with my studies, and I was going to turn over a new leaf the next morning: I was going to get up 'early' (i.e. by 9 am) so that I could catch up on the reading for the day. Let's face it: we were only 2 or 3 weeks in at that point and I was behind on the reading in ALL my classes. My previous studious self would have kicked my current self's lazy behind if we had met each other at that point.

So indeed, on the Tues. morning, my alarm went off at 9, and although I did hit the snooze a bunch of times, I eventually crawled out of bed to start my morning routine. The first thing I always did was turn on the radio (preferring music to the TV) and then I turned on my computer to check my email to see if my beloved had emailed me while I slept. Instead of music on the radio I heard CNN. "What is going on?" I thought. It took a minute, but when I realized what they were saying I immediately flipped on the TV to see the twin towers smoking. Right then my phone rang: my boyfriend, also in disbelief, wanted to make sure I knew what was happening. We watched together, separated by 1500 miles, the chaos - the reporters trying to get information, hearing there was another plane in PA... and then I remember saying, "the tower's leaning! It's leaning!" And then it came crashing down.

I wish I could say watching all of this was horrific. I mean, it was. But we see images like that all the time in movies - and it's not real. It didn't feel real and therefore not as shocking because I was so numbed by the fake. I still don't fully know what to make of that. Maybe that was more about psychological safety nets taking over or something, I don't know.

And then the emails went out - no, classes are not cancelled. Yale never closes. Of course, I never did the reading I had intended to do that morning, and the last place I wanted to be was in class. But I felt powerless to do anything else, so at 11:30 am, I packed my backpack and went to class. Everyone was numb, shocked, scared. The professor taught Christian History (or did he? Did anyone notice?) and I took notes (or did I? I can't remember). I wanted to get back to the TV, to the internet, hungry for news, for information. What was going on? Back in my room, glued to the TV, as 1:30 pm class loomed - more emails that class was still on. So, again, I packed my bag and went to Liturgics. This usually strong and somewhat arrogant prof. was more visibly struggling - it seemed - than my first prof., but on he taught. There were fewer students in that class than the first, some had gone to the Red Cross to offer help, some to the train station to help those who would be wondering about loved ones as they did or didn't return home. But the crazy thing is that the professor taught and we sat in that classroom. Senseless, and uncaring, and completely wrong.

After that was our colloquium down at the Berkeley Center - just for the Episcopal (and Lutheran) Students. The Dean appeared to tell us he had heard from the Associate Dean and her husband who were at Trinity Wall Street that morning - that they had run for their lives, but had made it to Staten Island and were ok. I had no idea they were there. We talked about it a little, and he let us leave. Thankfully, finally someone who seemed to get that sometimes you just need to stop. When I've shared this with people in the past, sometimes they say, "well, you have to keep your routine" or something like that. But really, everyone was traumatized, and no one was focused on learning, and everyone wanted to be where they felt safe. Holding classes was useless and harmful, in my opinion. And that is what I remember about that day.

So that's my 9/11 story. At the time it felt so overwhelming. I didn't know how we as individuals or as a nation would get past it. I knew there would be a war - there would be more suffering. I believe it was in my Old Testament class that someone finally offered something helpful on this topic: the prof. said that this event is to us what the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem was to the Ancient Jews. That was God's House - indestructible, infinite, built to God's specifications and loved and cared for to that extent. It was the center of their lives. And it was destroyed and the people were exiled. Their world and their worldview was destroyed just like that. For some reason, that parallel gave me some perspective and peace. For one thing, it meant that others have experienced this kind of pain, and got through it. And, for another, God was there and is still here, and will ultimately prevail.

I've been to Ground Zero. I didn't want to see it. There's not much to see. To me, it symbolizes regret, mistakes. Something that should not have happened. Something that had people been doing their jobs - following the rules, listening to their instincts, paying attention - it would never have happened. That may sound harsh and maybe unfair, but it's how I feel. The memory of it is fading. It has to fade or else we couldn't go forward. Maybe the wrong things from that time period are enduring: the distrust of Muslims, the desire for vengeance, blind patriotism and misplaced trust in our leadership. Maybe more time needs to pass before we 9/11 can be something more. Before we as humanity can learn the lessons that can make us better because of it. I'm sorry if this sounds pessimistic. But I just don't see that much is different. It's almost like it made us more materialistic, more conservative, more scared, more selfish as a country and a culture.

And now, as a mother, my prayer is that my child will never experience something like this in his lifetime.