I can't let today go by. Not unwritten, not unmarked, not unlived.

10 o'clock local news anchor, lead in to 9/10/03 broadcast: "Tonight: Shots fired outside a luxury hotel, was rapper 50 Cent the target? And: find out why Ben and J. Lo have called off their marriage! And see what happens when this bear falls out of a tree and onto a trampoline! But first: The second anniversary of 9/11..."

I am not making this stuff up.

It's two years later. Ours is the only house on our block with an American flag still in the window.

Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera aired video of Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri today.

It's two years later. I finally delete Ed Strauss from my Outlook Contacts. Strauss was Chief of WTC operations. I met him when I went to a bidder's conference (where I was the only bidder) for the recycling program Project Renewal ran at the WTC. I got to tour the complex with him; it was like touring a battleship with the captain. He knew everyone, the workings of every building. He immediately gave the impression of a stand-up guy, a guy who knew how to get anything done, who's job was based on what he did and not who he knew. Of course he went down with his ship. Even though I barely knew him, I couldn't bring myself to delete his name for a long time.

President Bush asks for $87b to fight war in Iraq.

It's two years later. I'm looking out the window at the Empire State building. I see a plane low in the sky, and I hold my breath. It passes. The plane.

New York City's economy is in trouble. Budget cuts close fire stations. We still haven't seen all of the $20b in federal aid. I pass a store window that announces a "BUSINESS SUCKS SALE".

It's two years later. For a year I've been seeing a new therapist, one who does behavioral modification, which is proven to help combat depression. My sister helped me find him. My wife helped me go. He's the fifth therapist in as many years, but the first to make a major difference in how I'm living my life, instead of just understanding why I feel the way I do. (Oh yeah, and the drugs help too.)

It took me a while to start talking about 9/11. I could barely work for the year after that. I didn't water any of my plants and they all died. He diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. But the whole city has PTSD, I say. I didn't lose anyone, I didn't see anyone die, it was just a train and some smoke and ashes and a long walk home. I can still take the subway. That doesn't matter, he says. You were there and the fear is still with you.

We talk about fear. "Even paranoids have real enemies," I joke, quoting Woody Allen. We agree that many fears are rational and justified these days. Like on an Orange Day, being in a subway station that's suddenly filled with soldiers. Like carrying around a breathing mask and a flashlight in my bag. Like having our potassium iodide pills ready.

On TV, I watch crowds of people streaming across the bridges and highways, trying to get out of the city. I hear that people are trapped in the subway. It's only a blackout, and I'm far away, and I have power, and they keep telling us it's not terrorism. So why is my heart in my throat?

It's two years later. I'm wearing my 9/11 tie today, the one I wrapped across my mouth two years ago, to prevent me from breathing in smoke.

It's a nice tie, really.

"The Inspector General of the EPA concluded that the White House had bullied the EPA to add 'assuring statements' about air pollution levels [near Ground Zero] and 'to delete cautionary ones.'"

It's two years later. Last year's vigil in Prospect Park left me empty, sort of angry. I wanted some closure, some public ritual that would help me deal with grief and fear and anger. A requiem. "Rhapsody in Blue" does none of those things, as wonderful as Gershwin is. I don't want to celebrate, I need to mourn.

This year, I know there isn't going to be any closure. There isn't a public ritual that can provide it. There isn't a public leader who can heal the wounds. Tonight, this year, I'll help put the kids to bed. And then I'll go do my shift at the co-op. And then I'll go to bed.

Things we never heard of two years ago: "Free Speech Zones." The PATRIOT act. Box cutters and duct tape as weapons of mass destruction and methods of civil defense, respectively. Shoeicide bombers. Homeland Security. Ground Zero.

It's two years later. Now we have another son. Zach is born into a world of September 12th. I hold him and wonder about the future, just like I held Ben two years ago.

15 more killed in Israel by terrorists, yesterday. Including an ER doctor and his daughter, the day before her marriage. I wonder about what would happen if we lost 15 people a day, instead of 3,000 all at once. What that would do to us all.

It's two years later. The calendar lies, really. It's not September 11th. We keep changing, like an particle jumping between eigenstates, from September 10th to September 12th, from reading movie reviews to reading casualty reports, from buying ice cream to buying bandages and batteries, from worrying about dinner to worrying about destruction.

It's two years later. It's a beautiful day today. I don't want it to be. It was beautiful that Tuesday, too. The sky should weep. But it refuses. The sun still shines, the clocks don't stop, the trains rumble beneath the streets, food is cooked, windows are opened.

It's two years later. I still don't have any answers.

M E-L posted this on September 11, 2003
It is filed under Community, Featured Posts

It is also indexed with the following tags: 9/11 | Essays | WTC |