What I’d like to say is that we’re all close to being comfortable again.<\/p>\n
What shook me the most about 9\/11 was that I mourned less over the loss of two temples to business than the trust I had in the sanity of everyone around me. \u00a0 I was a junior in college. \u00a0Instantaneously the plazas and throughways were chalked up with “Death to Towelheads” and “Horsemen pass by!” \u00a0Our tallest buildings–seven story dorms–were worried over as possible targets. \u00a0I knew a few people of Indian descent. \u00a0They started getting harrassed on 9\/12. \u00a0It was a nightmare for me, personally, realizing that the institute in which I’d placed my trust could be violently flipped like a naive bride.<\/p>\n
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There was a young man I’ll never forget. \u00a0Started carrying around a 4×6 foot US flag on an 8 foot wooden stick right after we invaded Afghanistan. \u00a0Wherever he went. \u00a0In the classroom he laid it into a back corner. \u00a0Outside between buildings it dug into his shoulder, flung mindlessly into the wind. \u00a0No one really asked him how long he’d carry it, but he’d offer this information without prompt. \u00a0“As long as it takes. \u00a0Until our boys come home.”<\/p>\n
That’s what’s funny, really. \u00a0All the ways we thought we’d show our support, not knowing how long we’d have to keep our arms in the air, not knowing how tired we’d get. \u00a0Not ready for the Long Haul.<\/p>\n
Maybe without Bush and Cheney we’d never have to face our own shortcomings. \u00a0Who knows? \u00a0Maybe President Gore would’ve let us been quietly angsty but satisfied in the knowledge that “We coulda wiped them off the face of the earth, we just chose not to.” \u00a0Who knows. \u00a0Maybe it would’ve been exactly the same except with more poetry and a wider pool of contractors. \u00a0It doesn’t really matter, because at the end of the day September 11th was not a political issue, not a war issue, not a federal case.<\/p>\n
For Them, for the late bin Laden and his up-down-look-all-around Al-Qaida crew September 11th was about our culture, and we’ve failed to respond in kind. \u00a0At least officially. \u00a0Down to a person, we’ve all made decisions about how to react. \u00a0Fasten it into a museum exhibit, lock it into plexiglass, mount it on the mantle, withhold it from the children, burn it as hate fuel, dash it as ironic bitters into a final toast to American freedom. \u00a0Use it as you will. \u00a0We all do. \u00a0There is no consensus. \u00a0There is no Right Answer.<\/p>\n
A decade on, there’s even less sense. \u00a0All the major parties involved seem to have retired or withdrawn. \u00a0We’re left to clean the mess they made. \u00a0Which is why I find it so hard to find sympathy for the falling man.<\/p>\n
Diving headfirst out of a building, diving headfirst into a corner of Manhattan, escaping a burning death, a collapsed-upon death, a death tarnished by the inhalation of your co-workers’ dust. \u00a0You showed up on time to work, maybe even early, and this was the thanks you got. \u00a0But choosing to leap, knowing, full well, there’d be nothing to save you, jumping out into the open to escape an entire decade, to evade the future, to avoid the aftermath…You gave up. \u00a0Turning and spinning, subject to the cross-currents defined by granite and glass, a tiny body moved by invisible laws…possibly wondering Why and Who, but not really caring to find out more than you wanted not to char, not to be lost for days, not to be inconvenienced by a slow, inquisitive death.<\/p>\n
When, finally, history singled you out, you chose the drama over the documentary, chose to cease thinking and ultimately overload your brain with sensation rather than fact. \u00a0You leapt, tumbled, and never regained upside right.<\/p>\n
Of course, you know what I’m going to say. \u00a0It wasn’t just the Falling Man, wasn’t just those random jumpers, the ink-spot stickmen against a blue background. \u00a0They had millions put their heads out the window in the years that followed, millions of us who signed off on their ability to find a solution or even a reason to move forward. \u00a0Let’s put it back the way it was as quickly as possible, back to September 10th. \u00a0We know our tools are slow. \u00a0Litigation, war, and sanctions. \u00a0Assassination, seige, and structured payments. \u00a0Pastiche, retrospective, and exhibition. \u00a0A decade of running without heads on. \u00a0But one day the impossible will be possible again. \u00a0One day it will shiver and be done with, and we’ll be back to bartering and bickering as usual, no qualms, no doubts, and all possible enemies contained in a color-coded three-ring binder.<\/p>\n
It won’t hurt when we hit the ground because of the pressure. \u00a0Because we started so high. \u00a0Because we are inverted and can’t see the end rushing towards us.<\/p>\n
Again we are staring at the sky and waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What I’d like to say is that we’re all close to being comfortable again. What shook me the most about 9\/11 was that I mourned less over the loss of two temples to business than the trust I had in …<\/p>\n