9/11. Just saying it gives me chills. This date, known all over the world to everyone, means so many things to people both New Yorkers and on the broader spectrum, to Americans. To New Yorkers, especially to those directly affected by the tragedy, this date is forever imbedded in their memories. It is a day of lost lives, lost chances, lost hopes, and lost peace.
My main recollection from this day is just confusion. I didn’t understand what was going on and my parents wouldn’t explain anything. All I knew was that I was excited to be able to be picked up early from school, but disappointed to see that I couldn’t watch my favorite cartoons. My dad turned on the Egyptian channels and all I could see was burning buildings. Just burning buildings and fire. At that I age, I knew what death was, and I could certainly count to 3,000. I had realized that this was a big deal but I couldn’t fathom it. Terrorists flew planes into buildings. That’s silly, planes fly in the sky, not in buildings. What’s a terrorist? People hurt others for no reason? But that’s so mean. I could fairly say that my innocence and naiveté took a huge hit when I begun to understand the reality and impact of this occurrence.
But by the next week or so, while NYC, the city that never stopped even for a second, was at a standstill, I was moving on. I was only a child; my preoccupations were on a very small scale. I definitely overheard conversations about the mysterious World Trade Center (which I had not yet connected that it was the twin towers) and about this loss. But I did not hear the endless stories about missing people, about mourning families, about foolish governmental acts, or even about the other planes attacks involved until quite a while later. Though I was alive during the time, I wasn’t involved. I didn’t have a stake in what happened, it seemed to only inconvenience my seven-year-old self for a day. I could tell that this was going to be a part of history that the future generations would learn about. But it was only until years later, when I looked into the matter and really thought about it, did I form an opinion and somewhat of a reaction.
Though little me did not give much thought to it, other people certainly were. I read a makeshift transcript of a memoir written by an older friend who was headed to work in the towers before the second plane hit. This text is a compilation of her journal entries that she wrote in a daze over the course of the year that followed. Through her I lived the up close agony and confusion of the attack and the utter loss and emptiness that followed. She lost all that one could ever possibly lose: her soon to be spouse, her entire career, her best friends, her peace. Her accounts still bring me to tears. The date 9/11, to her, holds a completely different weight than to me, or a Minnesotan sitting on his couch watching these events unfold. To her, this ‘event’ changed the entire direction of her life. It kept her on edge for months to follow and caused her serious health problems. To New Yorkers living in New York at the time, this event holds painful memories and terrible images, but to younger people now, it means next to nothing. Do we feel the same way about the Civil War as say, a Civil War soldier or a resident of Gettysburg? No. And it sad to think about, but that is what will happen in less than fifty years.
To those from other countries, 9/11 is a huge shake to America’s status. A handful of people managed to completely confuse the country and kill thousands in one foul swoop. They stopped people, literally, in their tracks and watched America hold its breath as the towers came down. For months later searching and slowly cleaning up was all people could do. But it put the almighty United States in a daze. These buildings, Pentagon included, held world affairs; they were centers of communication and business. And in an instant, they were replaced by a huge, gapping hole and hundreds of splintered connections.
In my opinion, no one can really portray these events in an accurate way. Maybe a way that is pretty or thoughtful. But one that is truthful and alluring? I don’t think so. Nothing could say more than the video and images of the crash and the bewildered expressions of people standing in the middle of the streets trying to believe what they are seeing. Just raw footage of people running, racing the dust cloud. No voice-overs, no explanations, no opinions; none of that will be necessary for the viewer to understand the impact. Each artwork that attempts to portray a certain aspect of the event could never do it justice. Too much happened on that day to so many different people, we cannot even begin to tell the story. The artist will only be able to see through his/her lens and some aspect of what they saw and felt may and will be lost as they try to translate that into a physical work. That is not to say they shouldn’t try, but I cannot look at it and see 9/11 the way I look at a video and cry for all of humanity.
