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Wed. Sep 10, 2003

Another Voice

Another Voice – (inspired by Michele’s Project, Voices) When the first plane hit, I was still wrapped in slumber in the comfort of my bed, and I watched the second plane hit from the safety of my living room. So I don’t have a heart wrenching story about what happened to me the morning of 9/11, or maybe even a point. I’m just another person who will never forget where they were on that morning. And what they witnessed, even from afar.

I’d been up very late the night of September 10. At least 2:30am, according to the time stamp on this tutorial I was writing. I still had to complete the print versions, but I was tired and put it (and myself) to bed a bit before 3am.

Having set the alarm for just before 9am, when it went off I very sleepily heard the radio blaring something about a plane hitting one of the towers at the WTC. So, half awake, I crawled out of bed, bypassed my usual first stop at the coffee pot, and instead headed to find the remote control to the TV in our living room. Sleepily switch on the news.

I had stopped about seven feet from the TV, purely because that’s where I found the remote. I stood stock still in that spot for a long time. I’m really not sure how long. At least ten minutes. Because a minute or so after tuning in, I watched the second plane hit.

Only partially awake, I couldn’t fully take in what I was seeing in those first moments. A terrible accident at one of the towers. Lots of smoke and confusion, both in the visuals and the announcers. And then clarity: the second plane slamming most deliberately into the South Tower, followed by an instant realization, one that has hardly faded since.

This is war.

The next hour and a half were spent flipping between news channels, and futilely trying to find news on the web. Futilely seeking some kind of answer to questions that could never be answered. What I remember of that morning is mostly anger. The tears came a bit later that day, as the full weight of the human toll became more clear, often in very individual terms.

The anger can be heard in the first entry I managed to make that day, at 10:32am: “Much is yet to be determined, but one thing is for certain: War has been declared against us. In their mind, it’s been that way for some time, but there should no longer be any doubt in our mind. We have minimized these events in our own minds by calling them ‘terrorist actions.’ Like it or not, this is WAR. It will continue to be waged against innocent Americans in an organized manner, until we do something about it.”

“The second Trade Tower just collapsed. Out of the rubble, we must rise and overcome those who would destroy us.”

Words of defiance, but it was no simple process of “observation equals conclusion.” Like nearly everyone, I struggled mightily with what I’d seen, as expressed in “The Day After : Sensory Hangover”: “I’ve only had about 4 hours sleep, as my brain was very reluctant to shut down last night. It had received so much sensory input, of such a visceral and previously unseen nature, it seemed to be working overtime to sort and file the day’s events, often coming up empty on just where to place this particularly ugly fact, or that previously unseen horror. Crippled by the very data it was handling, it was like a 386 processor trying to process and render a 100 megabyte 3D file. It was going to take a very long time, and would likely fail in the process.”

A very long time indeed. Two years. And though I understand much more than I did that morning, there are some things that can never be understood. Some things that are simply unprecedented, without equal, and ultimately without resolution.

And yet we try, with varying degrees of success. In the days afterwards, Charles Johnson said, “This incident is a pretty severe test of character; not everyone will pass it.”

That test goes on today in more muted tones, but it was loud and clear two years ago, and the reactions around the world were telling. We saw who was saddened by our loss. And we saw who cheered it.

I saw, and I remember it all. I’ll never forget anything from that day, as long as I live.