Today everyone is writing and talking about THAT day, about 9/11/2001. It’s very much on my mind as well though I feel mixed emotions about saying/posting anything. The day has been fetishised and used as a cudgel against the ‘other’ -- other being liberal, Muslim, conservative, whatever.
I DO want to observe this day so I do it with memories told.
On this day, all those years ago, I was home sick -- Jen, Oni, Bob and I lived in Cambridge then. I wasn’t sick but home nonetheless, with what I thought was a strained back muscle. The docs said I had sciatica and this would pass, I'd be better, all on my own/no treatment needed, by winter. Eventually, after months of battle against the health care industry juggernaut, I was finally permitted to see the Mass General neurologists. They were the smart ones who found the leviathan, (we call him Moby -- just FYI), who was wrapped around my spinal cord from the first thoracic vertabra to the fourth.
In any case, I was sleeping away the pain in Bob’s big easy chair when he dashed out of his study to wake me. He turned on the TV news and we watched the madness. In silence. A quiet interrupted only by ‘this can’t be real.’ ‘oh, oh no,’ ‘this can’t be real.’
I kept trying to call my friend (like a cousin really -- our families have been tight since I was 3 and Lydia was 5) who worked near there. Eventually I reached her sister in Minneapolis who’d been able to make contact -- Lydia and husband Steve were OK.
Jen was at work this day. Astoundingly, the print shop didn’t shut immediately. Jen, Oni and I all worked in Boston proper -- directly across from the Prudential Center. The CEO had all supervisors stay in order to call every last customer to announce that we’d be shutting early. ‘the hell? I mean, ‘seriously dude -- WHAT were you thinking?!’ Jen remembers that one customer was actually majorly pissed. He had a conference that we were printing materials for. Em.....’dude, I think yur little show isn’t gonna play -- at least not today.’
We lived a half block behind the Middlesex Jail and Courthouse in East Cambridge back then. When Jen rounded the corner of Spring Street she saw a stream of happy prisoners (seriously -- it was like an unexpected school picnic day for them, she said) being evacuated from the tall federal building. She remembers seeing a sea of cops all wielding huge ‘equalizers.’
Scary, scary-ass shit.
When she and Oni came home we all huddled, more or less speechless, around the TV, watching the same footage, over and over again, of the Towers falling.
Jen’s best bud from high school, Jana, was scheduled to fly to California for some big work conference that morning. She was meeting a co-worker at the airport -- they’d fly together. Celeste called Jana that morning to say she’d arrived Logan ahead of schedule and would be catching an earlier flight -- she’d see her in LA. That was the flight that went down in Pennsylvania.
Celeste could see what was happening -- that death wasn’t far off. She was able to call her mother from the air to say goodbye.
NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR!
On this day, all those years ago, I was home sick -- Jen, Oni, Bob and I lived in Cambridge then. I wasn’t sick but home nonetheless, with what I thought was a strained back muscle. The docs said I had sciatica and this would pass, I'd be better, all on my own/no treatment needed, by winter. Eventually, after months of battle against the health care industry juggernaut, I was finally permitted to see the Mass General neurologists. They were the smart ones who found the leviathan, (we call him Moby -- just FYI), who was wrapped around my spinal cord from the first thoracic vertabra to the fourth.
In any case, I was sleeping away the pain in Bob’s big easy chair when he dashed out of his study to wake me. He turned on the TV news and we watched the madness. In silence. A quiet interrupted only by ‘this can’t be real.’ ‘oh, oh no,’ ‘this can’t be real.’
I kept trying to call my friend (like a cousin really -- our families have been tight since I was 3 and Lydia was 5) who worked near there. Eventually I reached her sister in Minneapolis who’d been able to make contact -- Lydia and husband Steve were OK.
Jen was at work this day. Astoundingly, the print shop didn’t shut immediately. Jen, Oni and I all worked in Boston proper -- directly across from the Prudential Center. The CEO had all supervisors stay in order to call every last customer to announce that we’d be shutting early. ‘the hell? I mean, ‘seriously dude -- WHAT were you thinking?!’ Jen remembers that one customer was actually majorly pissed. He had a conference that we were printing materials for. Em.....’dude, I think yur little show isn’t gonna play -- at least not today.’
Scary, scary-ass shit.
When she and Oni came home we all huddled, more or less speechless, around the TV, watching the same footage, over and over again, of the Towers falling.
Jen’s best bud from high school, Jana, was scheduled to fly to California for some big work conference that morning. She was meeting a co-worker at the airport -- they’d fly together. Celeste called Jana that morning to say she’d arrived Logan ahead of schedule and would be catching an earlier flight -- she’d see her in LA. That was the flight that went down in Pennsylvania.
Celeste could see what was happening -- that death wasn’t far off. She was able to call her mother from the air to say goodbye.
NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR, NO WAR!
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