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September 11, 2002
One Year
A year ago today, I wanted a blog.
To be honest, it was probably more like a year ago tomorrow, but I think everyone pretty much knows the reasons for why I wanted one. With site redesign and all the usual procrastinations, I didn't get the blog up and running until mid-December, but this was the event that got me off my ass to really work on it.
I'm avoiding pretty much all broadcast radio and television today because I've really seen enough of pretty much most of these things. I've got CDs, DVDs, study guides for the MCSE that I'm trying to recertify, and I hope by the end of the day I'll still have my sanity.
This morning, I woke up to the radio as usual, but I had to turn it off within 15 minutes because they decided to start fielding phone calls from people that had to go through a lot worse than I did, for I was one of the lucky ones that didn't lose anyone directly in the tragedy. As I was dressing, though, the sunrise behind the Empire State Building was gorgeous.
So, I think I will take that image with me for the day. Have a safe Holy Fucking Shit Day, everyone. I'll blog more about why I've been so absent tonight. I have a feeling I'll be looking for the distraction.
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 23:38:28 -0400
From: secret asIAN man [my email address]
Subject: "Tomorrow is not a normal commuting day"
To: [a mailing list of mutual friends]
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
Date: [originally sent Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:59:46 -0400, resent with edits Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:52:54 -0400]
From: secret asIAN man [my email address]
Subject: Eye Contact Made Between New Yorkers
To: [a mailing list of mutual friends]
EYE CONTACT MADE BETWEEN NEW YORKERS
By Ian Ng
It's 8:46 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, seventeen minutes, an hour and fourty-three 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!" 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."
Today. What a difference a year has made. It's business as usual again. The question is will people let the healing continue and are we doing the right thing?
Posted by KinCross at September 11, 2002 04:06 AM