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January 24, 2002

Speaking of 11 September...

I've found that one easy way to amuse myself is to go back and read my email on particular dates when big earth-changing things happen and 11 September is no exception. Back then, in the pre-blog days, my usual open venue for writing was a mailing list that I share with about 30 some odd other people, most of whom had split off from a list about the Friends sitcom some years back to form a social circle powered by Listserv. Here's what I wrote to the list, which probably best encapsulated my emotions for the day:

X-Sender: itn1@mail.concentric.net
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:38:28 -0400
Reply-To: The Basement Party
Sender: The Basement Party
From: secret asIAN man (Ian T Ng)
Subject: "Tomorrow is not a normal commuting day"
To: xxx@xxx.com

I don't know why I chose that quote from the Port Authority of NY/NJ, but it seemed like an appropriately understated summation of the day.

I'm not going to pretend that I went through the turmoil of having family in the blast zone; I didn't, they were all safely outside of New York or Washington D.C.

I'm not going to pretend that I was any close enough to smell and touch the debris; I saw a few errant flecks and sniffed the smoke only when I walked downtown to find a train home.

I'm not going to pretend that we didn't think the Chrysler building was not a target, though most of us considered it an unlikely one while the Empire State Building still stood.

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't spend a decent chunk of the day worrying about friends, wondering where they were, calling people to let them know that I'm not dead, wondering about my friends' girlfriends and fiancees that were working in the Wall St. area.

I'm not going to pretend that one of our clients' offices was completely obliterated by the collapse of the building.

I'm not going to pretend that the rumours of people pulling random Arabs out onto the street and beating them or shooting them doesn't disgust me. I'm not going to pretend that the average American's ability to tell one minority group from another is poor doesn't scare the shit out of me.

I'm not going to pretend that the Afghanistani consulate on the floor above mine didn't concern me when I remembered that it was there.

I've been pretending all day. I've held a brave face. I've been dispassionate and dissociated on the most part and tried to be as
calm and level-headed as I could while all this chaos happened around me. But,

I am home, now...

... and I'm a total wreck.

The adrenaline is gone and the stress is bleeding away. Like the steel in the towers, it's all melting away and there's nothing left to hold the rest of me up.

I've spent much of the day worrying about others because it was easier than worrying about myself

Now that I know they're all safe, I don't know what's going on. It was like... watching a movie. It was like Independence Day, when the aliens totally trashed the place. Two 110-storey buildings (World Trade Center #1 and #2) felled, just like that. All those people... Over 250 firefighters and 100 police officers thus far are dead or missing, in addition to all the civilian casualties.

World Trade Center #7 was burning all day and fell while I was on my way home. They expect the Marriott will collapse as well. I could probably spit out a lot more cold hard facts that you could all get just as easily by watching the news, and that would distract me for awhile, but I've been alternating between calm times and fits of crying for no particular reason.

I've been chastised for even thinking of going to work tomorrow, with concern over a software demo that was supposed to take place and for which I should have been doing coding today. People were actually walking around trying to do work, but I wonder if it was just their way of not trying to think about their missing friends and family. I'm supposed to go to DC next week for some kind of installation. I have no details beyond the fact that I'm going. I think I'll go by train... or drive.

I... I don't know what else to say. Usually, it feels like I can find the words for just about anything but I just can't. I'm tired, drained, and exhausted. I feel like I'm missing something but I don't know what.

I think I'm missing a hug. A nice warm pair of arms to wrap around me and a voice to tell me that everything will be alright, whether I believe them or not.

This is New York. We'll see you in the morning.

Ian

This was followed a week later by something that was a little less off-the-cuff:
X-Sender: itn1@mail.concentric.net
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:59:46 -0400
Reply-To: The Basement Party
Sender: The Basement Party
From: secret asIAN man (Ian T Ng)
Subject: Eye Contact Made Between New Yorkers
To: xxx@xxx.com

EYE CONTACT MADE BETWEEN NEW YORKERS
By Ian Ng

It's 8:48 a.m. on 18 September 2001, exactly one week after the first of four hijacked planes slammed into its target, the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. So much has happened in a second, eighteen minutes, an hour and forty-one minutes, and seven days.

The week has seen many rumors and facts and doubtlessly we'll see more in the days and weeks to come. I could write about the events that turned four planes into missiles that targeted American cultural icons; I could write about the Administration's reaction and call to war; I could write about all the political and religious influences; but those are topics that have been covered ad nauseum and somewhere between the thoughts of football when I first heard of the North Tower crash and now, I have come to this realization: it's all about people.

One of the major factors that sets this attack apart from terrorist acts in the past, was the number of people it affected. The magnitude
of loss in people has galvanized the resolve of Americans and citizens of the free world. On the surface, this may sound like this much rhetoric, but let's take a look at what we've seen in that span of time between that first fateful second and now.

New York's Finest and its Bravest showed up in droves. The elite emergency units of the NYPD and FDNY arrived within minutes and without regard for the peril, plunged into the stricken buildings to mount the stairs, even as the debris and chaos fell around them. Never before have so many participated in a rescue attempt like this and never before have so many perished in their selfless acts of heroism. The city mourned this weekend, even as it sought to replace the irreplaceable.

The stories of these men and women are absolutely heart-wrenching, telling of their leadership and courage. The record stands to say that many well-decorated heroes of all units fell that day, including (it is rumored) all of Co. 1, New York's elite firefighting team.

The Finest and the Bravest, however, don't hold a monopoly on heroism in this tragedy, for many others stepped up. Supreme Court Officers who chose not to leave there posts because "there are people screaming here," or the gentleman from Verizon who snagged a firefighter's jacket to run out and save people. As the minutes ticked away and reports continued to trickle in or some times overrun us with conflicting information, police agencies, fire fighters, construction workers, medical personnel, and too many others to name joined in, putting their own lives at risk even as the buildings threatened to collapse. To hear that there were too many volunteers was absolutely astounding.

There's no doubt that we, as a free society, have suffered a great loss. Nearly six thousand people are confirmed dead or reported
missing in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, giving us a real life experiment with Schroedinger's Cat that we can barely bear to expose; something made so graphically clear by the collages of the missing that cover the columns in the subway and numerous buildings.

We have lost our innocence and our security, as people jump at every sound and panic still reigns at the mere mention of a "suspicious package." We have lost the soundness of sleep as we rest fitfully at night, wondering what horror the next day may bring. Yet, in all this tragedy, there is comfort to be found in the strength of the human spirit.

Never before has there been such an outpouring of support. It is as if the nation suddenly woke up from its comfortable numbness of being and realized that behind all the faces that pass on the street, there was a person and every person mattered.

It showed in the tremendous number of calls into the area, filling the circuits, with people seeking loved ones. It showed in the dedication of people who stood in line for hours on hours in California, just to give blood. It showed in the steadily and rapidly rising running total of donations on a Red Cross donation page on Amazon.com (http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/paypage/PKAXFNQH7EKCX).

But those are the easy examples to pick out, the easy, tangible things that you can point to and say, "Look, in the past week, $6.2 million was raised at an average donation of $39!" [As of the end of 24 January 2002, this fund has raised $6.89M, average donation still $39. -Ian] Yet, I think the most profound effects have been the personal messages, the little intangible things that don't translate well to statistics.

How do you quantify eye contact between New Yorkers on the streets of Manhattan? In a place where it is notorious for New Yorkers to be brusque -- really, we're nice, we're just not nice to tourists -- how do you measure the fact that people have been much more pleasant to one another in the past week? How do you do the accounting for all the little smiles, the courtesy, and the sudden rise in compassion in a city known for its impersonality? How do you put a price on a slowing of the pace, if but for a moment, when you can actually stop and realize that there actually are roses that you can stop to smell?

There is no science to it. I can't say that before the incident that I measured 3.2 instances of eye contact in a 24 hour period and now
I've measured 5.4. Nor can I say that New Yorkers actually lived up to the stereotypes that we've been given. It's that vague cloud of fuzziness, influenced by personal perception, that somewhere, all round me, New York feels warmer and more personable to everyone, just as everyone has been so nice to New York.

How do you laud the incredible effects of your family members wrapping their arms around you, or hear them calling from 3000 miles away to make sure that you are safe and tell you that they love you? How do you put a value on that sudden wave of relief when you hear that your best friend and his wife made it out of the towers safely? How do you convey the feeling when friends who have never met you, and have only corresponded over email, write frantically as their time zone allows to ask, "Are you okay?"

And how, oh how, do you let them all know that when the sun comes up this morning, and shines its light on the rescuers continuing their work in Lower Manhattan and the Pentagon, that it means everything in the world to you that the world has looked back at you and said, "We love you. Do the right thing; we support you. Let the healing begin."

Posted by KinCross at January 24, 2002 10:19 PM

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