A 9/11 Meditation
~ 6 min. read
It was a Tuesday -
Rachel Corbin came running up to me in between classes, frantic energy radiating off her body.
“Patrick!! Patrick!” she called from about 40 feet away.
“A plane just flew into the pentagon!”
She stood there staring at me, waiting, suspended in time, knowing that at any moment I would pick up her cue and match her frenzy. I looked back at her while I grabbed a textbook from my locker.
“Okay…not sure why we care so much about Egypt but…yeah…that sucks I guess.”
She barely heard my response before rushing off to tell another classmate, to tell all her classmates. The hallway was packed. Rachel was Paul Revere sounding the alarm, pleading to her 7th grader friends to listen.
My embarrassing stupidity aside, that brief conversation with Rachel meant nothing until 15 minutes later when I sat transfixed by the TV in Mrs. Stevenson’s classroom. No one said a single thing as we watched the Twin Towers go down. Plane, horror, collapse, horror, another plane, horror, another collapse, horror. CNN didn’t have much footage in those early moments but what they did have they played on a loop.
Over and over and over again.
I was mesmerized; I was horrified. With each passing moment, with each new piece of footage, with each “important update,” I became more and more terrified. I couldn’t tell you why. I didn’t know or understand what I was seeing. I just knew that my heart was racing, my palms were sweaty, and I was keenly aware of the soles of my feet.
The not-knowing kept everyone glued to their seats, grown-ups included.
A Slipping
We had a Math Teacher, whose name I cannot remember. She was young-ish, blonde, with a southern accent (a rarity in south city St. Louis), and not very popular. In a school as black, brown, and “urban” as McKinley Classical Junior Academy, she never let her guard down. Inauthentic might be the word. And as everyone knows, middle schoolers can smell bullshit from great distances. Math Teacher was quite odiferous to us to our young senses.
In the middle of our CNN news cycle glue-in, Math Teacher burst through Mrs. Stevenson’s door. She told Mrs. Stevenson that she needed to talk to us. I remember thinking she had the same frenzied energy as Rachel Corbin. Mrs. Stevenson cautiously let Math Teacher have a moment.
She began by telling us everything was going to be okay (another disingenuous moment). She recapped what we already knew from watching CNN (a bullshit move). Minute by minute, her calm, measured speech began to spiral. Her comforting soon became ranting which soon became screaming. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was a patriot! Her finger pointed at us. How could this happen!
I remember thinking, “bitch, I wasn’t flying that plane, chill.” It felt like blame. Only in hindsight do I realize she was petrified, nearing a breakdown. Mrs. Stevenson quickly and gently escorted Math Teacher out of the room. Control had nearly been lost.
The rest of the day was a blur. I don’t imagine we left Mrs. Stevenson’s room, other than for lunch. I don’t imagine we turned off CNN. I don’t imagine anyone expected us to be students that day. It’s likely we were allowed to be children.
The following weeks were also a blur. I remember the candlelight vigils and Catholic masses. I remember food drives and charity events. Every day more facts came out. The CNN anchors gradually had new things to say. Shock gave way to horrifying clarity. There were tales of heroism and survival that we held tight. Collectively we began to unpack what happened on that Tuesday.
At one point in the aftermath, I found myself on a treadmill at the YMCA. Every TV in the cardio room was set to a news station and every news station was set to 9/11 coverage. “Coverage” was becoming “obsession.” While I sweated out the fear and anxiety on the treadmill, the TVs managed to pump it right back into me. The crash footage was always on, a 360-degree view of dystopia.
We were on a hamster wheel. We couldn’t exit. Maybe we didn’t want to.
The UpsideDown
It’s not hyperbole to say that day changed everything. The America of September 12, 2001 was dramatically different than the country it had been 24 hours earlier. Travel changed. New government agencies formed. Task forces created. We ate ‘Freedom Fries.’ Budgets inflated and money shifted. We went to war. The very nature of our conversations changed. Post 9/11 Discourse I remember it being called in college. There was a new “other” to fear. The world, and our place in it, changed.
In a way, 2020 has felt like a long drawn-out 9/11. The difference is that 9/11 was violent and whiplash fast while 2020 has taken its time in releasing its trauma. Each and every day we shift. We relocate all that we once knew, little by little. There’s been death in unthinkable numbers. A pandemic. A deeply-needed, deeply-painful racial reckoning. An election lurks on the horizon that seems to threaten the very existence of this country and the people in it. We had something called murder hornets. Murder hornets!
We’re on another hamster wheel.
I admit that I have a tendency toward blind optimism. Toxic Positivity as it’s being called (a term so ridiculous it makes me want to punch a wall). I can’t be Pollyanna about this though. I can’t honestly say America is better for having gone through 9/11. I can’t say we’ll be better on the other side of 2020.
What I can say is that reshaping isn’t inherently bad. Yes, growing pains are painful. However there’s the possibility of something fuller, more just, more equitable on the other side of that pain. If we choose that.
How can we use the horrors of 9/11 in 2020? History is a great teacher should we decide to learn from it. What did we do wrong after those terrorist attacks? What did we do right? Can we use those lessons now?
My Two Cents
Terrorism sought to severe us from our humanity. So does white supremacy. So does a politicized pandemic. So does the rhetoric of hate. If we reconnect to our own humanity, if we connect to the humanity of others, if we learn the lessons of the past, we may get through 2020 in one piece.
At least, that is my prayer.
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