The morning of September 11, 2001 began innocently enough for me. I showed up at work at 7:45am and began to prepare some catalogs for scanning. I was a Product Manager at Art.com, which is a non-specific way to say that I added new products to a web site thus fueling the capitalist machine.
This was at the tail end of the internet boom, and things were not booming at all. The morning was uneventful. My employees came in around 8am and were really working hard by 8:30. Things were going well, and as was customary, the radio was turned on.
Then it happened. Marva, the Jamaican-born product specialist, didn't quite get it. In a normal story, this would be because she didn't quite get anything the first time around. But at that moment, none of us "got it". The first plane hit the tower and I hit the internet. I was fortunate to be jumping onto a T1 connection thereby bypassing all of the access problems that many Americans had to deal with as they struggled to find information on their mothers, brothers, sisters and fathers.
Everyone thought that we were watching an accident. An unthinkable, and altogether non-sensical explanation, but then it happened. The second plane hit. Some of the people in my office began to cry, others of us had to gather across the street and have a manager's meeting about what we needed to do.
What ended up happening was very American. We pushed forward, and helped those of us that had families in the New Yoprk area. Some people were driven home, others were put in touch with their families. Then we finished our jobs.
Sure, in the grand scheme of things, our jobs were not vital to the survival of this country. But, in a sense, they were. We immediately followed what would become the message in the days that followed the attack, we got on with our lives, and we kept working. It is the American way. It is who we are.
Since then our country has continued to fall into a hole. Fear surrounds us and, in my eyes, controls us. We can't bring shampoo onto planes. Overtly Islamic citizens of our country seem like they might blow up at any moment, literally. Black people are less scary, but tan people are all crazy. Art has taken a back seat to security. And, I hate to say it, but we are forgetting who we are.
There was a time shortly after WWII where every American carried themself as a hero. Every single one of us felt responsible for the rest of the world. We were brash and we deserved it. Now, we are just brash. This brashness has begat harshness and coldness. We are paranoid and many of us have nowhere to turn but a religious system that is based more in fear than salvation. Why is this?
It all comes down to fear. We are afraid to rely on others to help us through. We think we can self-medicate and self-advise, but we are wrong. We are not alone, and we don't need to act like we are.
When I close my eyes and think about the bodies falling from the Twin Towers I think about loneliness and fear. But I also, somewhere in that image, can see that which makes American such a great place. When even one American falls, no matter the distance nor the metaphorical meaning of that phrase, we have a tendency to come together and congeal. That is, if we are wounded, we heal.
Today is about healing. And that is American.
