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11th September 2011
I Love My City
"I Love New York" or other versions of the same message are scribbled all over various sourvenirs one can pick up anywhere around the city. But I don't think anyone really understands it as much as New Yorkers who truly belong to and love the city.
It's the 10th anniversary, but it still feels like 9/11 happened not too long ago, though I'm thankful that it's far enough away in memory that I can actually think about it now. Usually on this day I light a candle. Not really for anything or to anyone, but just to light it, and remind myself of that day, when we all huddled around each other, sharing, in those hours of silent panic, an incredible sense of grief. It's one of those few moments in life when you know exactly what is running through the minds of the people next to you. It was almost tangible in the air around us.
I wrote about my personal experiences when this happened in a previous post so I'm not going to go into that again. The weeks after the attack we were all still shell-shocked and probably all suffered from some sort of PTSD. This was the record of a dream that I had a few weeks after the attacks. I guess it was partly due to survivor's guilt. I kept on thinking about what must have gone through the minds of people who were on the planes and who were around/in the towers.
"Around 9/25/01
This was from a long way back… also at the same time (nap) and of course I woke up extremely emotional, especially since it was about one or two weeks after 9/11. I died twice in this one. Or at least I could see death in two perspectives. I was on the plane the first time. I felt the entire plane tilt, everything flying everywhere and cargo running back and forth. I could see the cityscape approaching slowly, then the plane tilted into it and fell at accelerated speed and everyone was screaming and crying. Only thing I remembered feeling was “so this was how it was like…” and also a kind of emotional numbness… as if I was trying to put this outside of myself so I wouldn’t feel it.
The second time was in the subway. I was just, there, still with memories of the previous dream. All of a sudden everyone started screaming and running out of it. It was chaotic. I ran out with the people and raised my head and saw that there was a plane coming down quickly toward the part of town we were in. I just stared at it for a time, then thought a little. Despite it looked as if it was coming down fast it was taking a while to get here. Then I scattered with everyone else. I remembered contemplating about the plane and how people on the plane must had felt and the chaotic scene around me. Then buildings started coming down and everything started to fall into ruins."
In tragedy we bonded, in solidarity we prayed, in remembrance we remain. We all move on because we have to, but we will never forget that day. Even though I'm on the other coast right now, I'll always be a New Yorker, no matter where I end up. I was listening to the radio today and someone mentioned how New Yorkers are different from the rest of the country. While everyone else is using 9/11 as their reason/excuse for being patriotic/angry/fearful, etc, New Yorkers just shrug and say "whatever." It's not that we don't care, but it's that we don't want to use this incident, so sacred and so painful, so dear and so personal, as a means to achieve any goal. It just - IS. And fade as it will with the ages, it shall never be forgotten by those of us who shared it.
(photo courtesy of the Fong family)
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Sze K. Aka Chan's Posterous
歸去，也無風雨也無晴。
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