I am in New York, it is six years later. The sky is shedding so many tears. Maybe enough to equal all that were shed that day. And the air is thick and gray and ominous, this time with fog instead of smoke, debris, ash. It is thundering too, and I wonder how closely this sound echoes that of collapsing buildings. If the weather is trying to embody mourning, it’s doing a great job. Mother nature is making a statement.
The aftermath of 9/11 was surreal and unique for many reasons but one in particular stands tall in my mind. I can’t remember another moment in my lifetime when this country felt more unified than in the months proceeding the attacks. Suddenly, we were in love with America, the country itself and the ideals it embodies, and we were in love with each other and no one was immune. We would rebuild and triumph. It was a resurgence of the human spirit on the largest scale I’ve ever witnessed. Humanity was everywhere. It was humbling and, in a way, exhilarating.
In a friend’s car, driving home to Long Island from Binghamton a few weeks into my freshman year of college and a few weeks after the attack. We approached the George Washington Bridge, an expanse that links NY and New Jersey, and hanging from its beams was a massive American Flag. I sat in the backseat and gazed, overwhelmed and speechless, utterly moved. The image was gripping and when I think back on that time and those feelings, it’s the perfect representation.
I was able to google my way to this photo, though, interestingly, the flag in my memory is about four times larger than the one in this picture.
And now, here we are six years later, and everything is just fucked. Distrust and Dissent. Disappointment and Disaster. Iraq. Osama at large. Al Qaida a threat. Ailing rescue workers. 9/11 Commission Report. Finger pointing. Botched disbursements. Construction crawls at Ground Zero.
We squandered that rare feeling and now it's gone.
I break my heart around this...
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