September 11, 2004
9/11 in 2004
9/11/2001
A little after 9am, I received an instant message from Tracie. "Uh...we're listening to the radio and they say that a plane crashed into the world trade center..."
A little while later...
"um...oh my god!...another plane crashed into the world trade center..."
A little while later...
"Oh mi God, what is going on, they just said a plane crashed into the pentagon!"
Three years later, I'm living in Brooklyn, NY. I wake up to a crystal clear Saturday morning. About the same time the first tower was hit back in 2001. It seems like yesterday. The air even tastes the same this morning. I remember because, we worked in the shadows of the Hancock building in Boston at the time and while our employers were deciding what to do...we evacuated ourselves.
We had ridden our bikes that morning, so I rode over to Tracie's office and we headed to Cambridge, and kept riding out to the "Minute Man" trail. The air was cool and we didn't want to be in the city.
For one of the first times in my life, I was scared that we were unsafe, that our countries policies would bring us all death. I didn't know what to do. We rode for a while, and we even talked to a few people along the path about it briefly, some hadn't heard.
We kept riding. I heard and fealt a familiar sound, strangely out of place, as an F-16 fighter jet tore through the air above.
I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, surrounded by airbases and I hadn't heard one since I was back there. Boston's airspace is primarily commercial jetliners. It felt like we were at war.
Eventually we rode back to the city.
We've spent the last three years watching our President and his Administration and the Congress, lead this country to war against a country that wasn't involved in these attacks we remember today. We've watched and argued with many of our friends, families, neighbors, about whether attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other country would in any way keep us safe from future terrorist attacks, or whether the Administration's policies would help keep the world safe and in peace. It has not, and it is not.
These attacks we'll never forget, especially those of us on the East Coast, in any of those early fall brisk clear mornings, when the day looks like its going to be, just another beautiful day. Some of us will remember, some of us won't remeber why we feel strange, or depressed, or emotional, when everything seems so bright and hopeful.
This morning I was reminded as the sun shone and the air breezed cooly through our bedroom, that there is hope still. We can still hope that war the war will end soon. We can hope that this "American" ideal of "Freedom" will stop meaning, "Freedom to do as we please, unto whomever we do not like."
I hope that this Administration will end, and end swiftly. Have we settled the score for the thousands of lives lost here, by sacrificing thousands more of our own and countless other innocents abroad. Will this imagery, of the phantom towers linger on for years to come, like an open wound that never heals?
I hope not, I hope we can reconcile with the world and be seen as human citizens again someday.
