11th of September
Sep. 11th, 2003 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamadebWhich, I believe, should be the name of the day. Or 9/11. Patriot Day - maybe Todd Beamer, etal. on Flight 93, in their astounding act of heroism, were being patriots. The fireman and policemen and rescue workers in New York, and those who came from elsewhere to help - they were being *human*. They were showing the best side of being human after being shown the worst. But they weren't doing it to be patriotic. They were doing it because it was what they did.
And we will not speak of those who hijacked those planes and turned those innocent souls into weapons.
My memories of the day. I feel kinda *odd*. I'm a New Yorker. I spent the day a mile away from the attacks, safely in my office. I didn't pass out water. I did let people use the office phones and bathroom - we're storefront, so people could just walk in.
I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything. I got my information from the web and radio and TV. I wasn't even awake when the first plane hit. I didn't watch the towers fall.
And I'm glad of all of that. I've seen the videos too many times. I spent the day on IRC, chatting and trying to be calm, and connecting, and making sure the people I knew were all right, and saying psalms because there's nothing else I could have done. Not right then.
It didn't really hit home for me until the next night. Jonathan and I had gone to a favorite restaurant for dinner, one that took us on the F-line, and on the elevated tracks. One of the nice parts of the elevated station on 18th Ave, where the restaurant is, is the view of lower Manhattan.
And instead of the two towers we were used to, there was a great plume of smoke, and that smoke was blowing directly over Park Slope, where we lived at the time. And all I could think was, "There are souls up there." Not all of them Americans (another thing that makes the name "Patriot Day" a joke), but all of them *people* with family and friends and people who loved them.
The fires burned for months afterwards.
There's a hole in our sky.
And mostly, I'm still angry at the men who murdered so many people at once.
And we will not speak of those who hijacked those planes and turned those innocent souls into weapons.
My memories of the day. I feel kinda *odd*. I'm a New Yorker. I spent the day a mile away from the attacks, safely in my office. I didn't pass out water. I did let people use the office phones and bathroom - we're storefront, so people could just walk in.
I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything. I got my information from the web and radio and TV. I wasn't even awake when the first plane hit. I didn't watch the towers fall.
And I'm glad of all of that. I've seen the videos too many times. I spent the day on IRC, chatting and trying to be calm, and connecting, and making sure the people I knew were all right, and saying psalms because there's nothing else I could have done. Not right then.
It didn't really hit home for me until the next night. Jonathan and I had gone to a favorite restaurant for dinner, one that took us on the F-line, and on the elevated tracks. One of the nice parts of the elevated station on 18th Ave, where the restaurant is, is the view of lower Manhattan.
And instead of the two towers we were used to, there was a great plume of smoke, and that smoke was blowing directly over Park Slope, where we lived at the time. And all I could think was, "There are souls up there." Not all of them Americans (another thing that makes the name "Patriot Day" a joke), but all of them *people* with family and friends and people who loved them.
The fires burned for months afterwards.
There's a hole in our sky.
And mostly, I'm still angry at the men who murdered so many people at once.