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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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10th September 2010
In Memory...
Even though she's not the most popular among the NYT op-ed columnists. I still like her. She's one to keep cool and have a sense of humor in the most "inappropriate" times. Her sentiments in her article about people who are abusing the idea of 9/11 really resonated with me.
Many people have asked me what my views are regarding the mosque. I honestly have no particular opinion about it. But since recently much attention had been drawn to the topic and as someone who was in NYC and have a majority of my family and friends in NYC, I feel like venting just a bit.
Frankly, I do not believe I'm qualified to say one way or the other. Ok, to be absolutely honest, I think it's absurd that the subject even came up (i.e. the request for the mosque). A friend asked me about the subject, fully expecting me to support her view that the mosque should be built because it's a sign of religious freedom and tolerance. Generally I'm a liberal minded person, but I think whatever the great idealistic ideas are behind the mosque, to make such a suggestion is perhaps a bit insensitive to the people who suffered during the tragedy. My friend said that those are just personal feelings - but personal feelings matter. What made people initiate these attacks, and drove people to risk their lives to save others, those were personal feelings too. Don't expect people to be always clear minded and reasonable about things - we're all human. That's what the problem/trouble is, and lovable/admirable about humans. We can be "big" at accept it, but you can't blame people for not wanting a monument that brings up incredible pain in them and where their final memories of loved ones lay rest. But now that the subject has come up, I can only say that rather than arguing for one way or the other, perhaps a compromise could be made? I'll let minds greater than mine figure this one out.
Now, by suffered, I mean really suffered through the event, not just imagining it to have something to do with you just because you watched it on TV. Regarding the barrage of political and popular attention on this issue, and about what 9/11 should represents and how it should be remembered... and how it affected us as a nation and whether we should/should not build the mosque, well, people who were not in NYC or had friends/family in the tragedy should just SHUT it. For those of you who were in NYC... please remember that when it happened, our first thoughts were to care for whoever needed help and to encourage professional emergency workers, not to spread hate. We didn't hold rallies against potential (likely) instigators, we mobilized civilian efforts to assist those who needed help and held memorials with love and respect in our hearts.
This is the first time I've actually retold my experience in writing.
I was a college student at the time. Tuesday September 11th started off as any normal September day, beautiful actually, one of those rare perfect weather days in NYC. I woke up around 9ish (I had a late class) and as always, first thing I did was to turned on my computer. I was surprised to find many emails asking if I were ok. Perplexed (I had no tv in my dorm), I searched online (at frustrating speed) and realized what happened. I immediately tried to call my parents, who were working in downtown area... but of course, the phone calls were not getting through.
Since we had no TV (not as if the stations were functioning) and the internet was too slow, a group of us gathered around my humble radio, listening as the second tower was hit, as flight 93 crashed due to heroic acts of the passengers on board, as the towers fell, as we wondered when there would be an end... and fearing for our loved ones.
Right outside my dorm window, there was a perfect view of downtown. On a nice day, I could see quite a few of the high rise structures in the beautiful Manhattan landscape. But on that day, there was only a giant grey cloud, shrouding the entire downtown.
I was among the fortunate. My family members were all fine. I had a few friends who had close calls (near or actually in the towers) but they all got out in time. My mom's coworker lost her only son, who worked on one of the floors and went back in to save his coworkers. I had friends who watched as people fell, or jumped, as they ran from the area. I..., I only grieved.
It's not quite possible to talk about how I felt at the moment. Even to this day, I cannot help but become emotional when I actually talk/think about the experience. We were sitting helplessly, wondering what we could do. We donated, we volunteered, we even visited the site and attended group memorial sessions (admittedly more for us than for those who passed). As I sat there on the steps (of my college) with a lit candle, in silence, in the heart of the usually bustling city I loved, grief filled my heart. That same grief, plus an incredible amount of pride, overwhelmed me when I saw stories of people who came from afar to offer help out of simple concern, love and care for other human beings, and especially... especially when I went down to the site to volunteer, but was only able to clap and wave at firefighters as they passed in their trucks. It's that pride and love that helped carry us through the ordeal.
Much has changed. Life must go on, and New Yorkers are nothing else if not resilient. But nevertheless, we all share the experience and grief for it in our own ways. Sure, I had nightmares of death, suicide and destruction for about a month after the event and screamed myself awake from disturbing dreams. Sure, I sat in despair and wept endlessly, alone and with others. And yes, there'll always be a hole in my heart. But New Yorkers don't talk about what they suffered in that experience everyday. We don't bring it up in conversations (if other people don't), nor do we use it to make a point about how terrible the world is and how the "system" must be changed and certain religions are so horrible that everyone of that faith must be evil. It's unimaginable for us to use such a tragedy to make any political statement. This tragedy is sacred, crystalized into our memories. That's simply disrespectful to our city, to the people who died in that event (including those who voluntarily risked their lives to save people in the flaming towers), and to those who still suffer to this day. I cannot speak of the people who had a deep personal loss during this, I speak only for myself and those whom I know share my thoughts and feelings on this.
(picture by my friend Sashi on one of the anniversaries)
It's pain we must all endure... but we do it in silence. If you had love, at all, for any human, then perhaps, just a little, you would understand how much we want to preserve and pay proper respect to the people who lost so much more than us.
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Sze K. Aka Chan's Posterous
歸去，也無風雨也無晴。
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