9/11, Five Years

The question today seems to be - what did you learn after 9/11? I think that is a very bad question. A wrong kind of question.

I didn't learn anything. I already knew that our foreign policy was not sustainable, and that people around the world despised us for it. I already knew about the strength of our local leaders, and the incompetence and corrupt motives of our federal bureaucrats. I already knew about the resilience of my fellow New Yorkers. And I knew that the sentiment of newfound camaraderie would never last. I already knew that the tallest buildings in Manhattan were a target, and that the Walmart in Little Rock was not. And I knew that this administration was planning to fight a war in the Middle East. We all already knew that. Our body of knowledge, generally, hasn't been much altered by the events of 9/11, even though mass media has been working overtime to distract us from the facts and encourage ludicrous gut reactions that don't achieve anything besides longer lines at the airport.

A better question, certainly a more interesting question is - when did you start to recover? That will give you the human story. That is where you will find the sentiment and the emotion. And that is what you want to hear, and to tell, on a day of mourning. Just that, and not political commentary.

For some, things never got back to normal. They can tell you their story, about loss and grief. About an empty room. About ashes and tears at a mass grave, and how things can will never be able to recover.

For many, it was the moment when they had their first genuine laugh. They will tell you about Saturday Night Live with Rudy Giuliani. Or, about a joke that a coworker told that now, they will never forget.

For some, it was going back to work. They will tell you about taking the train across the Brooklyn Bridge. About the first day that they realized that the new security in their office building has become a normal part of their morning routine.

I was in Manhattan on 9/11, living in the East Campus high rise. We had a view of the towers from our floor, and we saw them come down. Classes were cancelled, and I lost track of time. We stayed in our suite, watching television for hours. I was working on the East Side at that time, and I went to work the following day, on 9/12, just so I could stop watching news. The subway and the streets were empty. I had never seen 5th Avenue so empty before in the middle of a weekday. My manager was at the office, telling everyone to go home. Classes resumed and the mayor told everyone to get back to work, to get through this. And of course I knew that everyone would, but the shock of grief was still so strong.

On September 21st, we had baseball. It was the first major professional sporting event in New York City following the tragedy. The intensity of the stadium crowd was a powerful accumulation of the stress and misfortune of the previous ten days. Everyone who was there knew just how bad everything was, but realized that the sheer act of being in a crowd was a step toward making things better.

In the 8th inning, New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza hit a two-run homerun against Steve Karsay, the Atlanta Braves pitcher. New York won, 3-2.

Some say that it was a sign. I don't know. It was a victory. It felt like more than that. The explosion of raw emotion during that moment was almost surreal.

New York, my city, won on that day, and I started to recover.