I looked at the calendar today, and realized tommorow is September 11. I hope the media goes easy on us.
I don't have any poignant 9-11 memories. I remember where I was when it happened, blah blah blah. I didn't lose anyone, and I don't know anyone who did. I was shaken up for a day or so, and then I moved on with my life.
I was a bitch who joined up with a peace march the evening of the attacks, and for the life of me couldn't figure out why people shook their fists at us in range. Now I look back at that girl who thought the worst thing we could do was go to war as a country, and realize how much she didn't understand everything that happened that day was war already. Smothered in the anti-capitalist, anti-America environment that is a liberal arts college campus, I blamed us. I was wrapped in self-righteous, self-loathing ideology; so much so that I didn't see the horror and therefore couldn't hate it.
Some years later, I went through a fascination phase with 9-11. I read everything I could find on the topic and let it consume my imagination. Eyewitness accounts, survivor accounts, technical reports. I avoided the conspiracy theory shit; I wanted the real human stories. I wanted to know what had happened; I wanted to know what reality I'd been hiding from when I had my head stuck in the sands of the ultra-left. All the facets of that day's terror tumbled in my head as I tried to make sense of it; I felt somehow that if I read every story, every account, that it would be enough that I would finally understand. If I could fully grasp the whole of it, maybe I could somehow file it away again, except this time put it where it really belonged. Then I could forgive myself for that day when I made smug liberal remarks while people were dying the worst kinds of deaths.
I found out recently that the Russian lover had been conducting business in the Twin Towers late at night, just hours before the attacks. He left in the very early morning when it became apparent a deal wasn't going to be made that day; he left a floor which would have no surivors. I shuddered when he told me this, and he shrugged. Horrible things happen in the world, and mostly we are lucky to have them not happen to us. This was just another time when he was lucky. He was already in another city by the time the plane hit, and so he didn't consider it a close brush at all. It was just one of those things.
Still, I couldn't help but think what would have happened if the negotiations had stretched a few hours longer. And he dismisses my speculation and tells me he would have made it. And he's so fucking smart that I believe him, even as I think about all the widows and girlfriends waiting at home who probably thought the same thing. 9-11 happened before the Russian lover and I met; and I think that as horrific as it would be to lose the amazing man I love, I am more sad at the thought of never having known him at all.