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Mmm. So, it's September 11th.
I don't particularly want to post about it, because it seems like everyone posts about it, and usually most of the posts come from people like me, who have no real connection to the event.
But I don't know. I never have really posted about it. It feels like it's not my place; I wasn't close enough to it to have anything to say that isn't an appropriation of feelings that rightfully belong to people who were more affected. And then sometimes I think that it doesn't matter, because it was a world-changing event, because there is a clear division between before and after. That everyone was affected, everyone has things to say. And I read an article about there being so many fewer weddings today than is typical for a Saturday in Autumn, and the writer questions whether it is appropriate to "use the day for celebratory events so soon", and I think: it's not about celebratory and it's not about soon, it's about the fact that for the entire rest of their lives, September 11th will be their wedding anniversary, and nothing will ever change that.
And then I reconsider everything. Nothing changed because of September 11th, nothing was made different. In truth, it wasn't even that unusual. Similar things happen all the time, they just... happen in other countries. To different degrees. It was awful, it was horrible, but it wasn't the sudden end to innocence that it's been made out to be. It wasn't some utterly unprecedented, never-to-be-seen-again evil that no one knew humanity was capable of. The way it's being used as a symbol is wrong. I'm not trying to diminish it to any of the people who were affected, but the fact that people died does not give new meaning to your life, or transform our relationship with the universe and history.
I don't know what I think. It depends on my mood at the moment. But I feel guilty, for not remembering the date until I saw the front page of the newspaper, and for being here, for sending emails and writing Meiji no Matsuei and sending giggly comments, when surely there's other, better things I could be doing. Like... I haven't given blood in 6 months, and why didn't I take that opportunity in June when I knew I wasn't going to get another chance for a while? And I don't pay enough attention to the news, I need to start watching more than the Daily Show and skimming the newspaper. I don't know what needs to be done. But there's must be something other than updating to Livejournal.
On September 11th, I walked down the hall of my high school, clinging to my best friend's arm- which was unusual enough, because she was so shy and worried about social propriety that she hardly ever let me touch her- and another friend walked by. "We're going to go to war!" I shouted, laughing at nothing, because I was terrified and because there was nothing for me to do, and I hate feeling helpless, yelling across dozens of other people packed into that hallway and hurrying to classes. "There'll be another draft and it'll be us!" She rolled her eyes and lifted a hand in a sort of wave, already too far down the hallway to answer, and my best friend hissed at me to shut up because I was embarrassing her and we were going to be late. And today the sky is that pale blue that's so clear it doesn't look real, and there's not a single cloud, only the faint trail of an airplane or two, already fading away. The grass is that shade half-way between yellow and green, where it can't decide if it's going to wither away from the heat or spring back with the ever-cooler days, and the bees that have nested right outside our front door, which my father keeps spraying with pesticide that doesn't kill them, are out in swarms, and occasionally one tries to fly through my window with a dull thud. There're crickets somewhere not too far away, and I can just hear them under the music I'm playing on Winamp. Across the street, a single tree is silhouetted against a white house, and the leaves at the very top are beginning to shade into brown and red, still mostly green, but slightly darker than the rest of the tree.
I can't even decide what I think. I'm not mature enough for this, to know about what's good or bad and consequences and repercussions and meanings. I keep coming back to the same thing: that people are dead, and they don't get to see today, and that can't be right. That's too unfair to be the way the world really works. It's the only thing I'm certain of.
I don't particularly want to post about it, because it seems like everyone posts about it, and usually most of the posts come from people like me, who have no real connection to the event.
But I don't know. I never have really posted about it. It feels like it's not my place; I wasn't close enough to it to have anything to say that isn't an appropriation of feelings that rightfully belong to people who were more affected. And then sometimes I think that it doesn't matter, because it was a world-changing event, because there is a clear division between before and after. That everyone was affected, everyone has things to say. And I read an article about there being so many fewer weddings today than is typical for a Saturday in Autumn, and the writer questions whether it is appropriate to "use the day for celebratory events so soon", and I think: it's not about celebratory and it's not about soon, it's about the fact that for the entire rest of their lives, September 11th will be their wedding anniversary, and nothing will ever change that.
And then I reconsider everything. Nothing changed because of September 11th, nothing was made different. In truth, it wasn't even that unusual. Similar things happen all the time, they just... happen in other countries. To different degrees. It was awful, it was horrible, but it wasn't the sudden end to innocence that it's been made out to be. It wasn't some utterly unprecedented, never-to-be-seen-again evil that no one knew humanity was capable of. The way it's being used as a symbol is wrong. I'm not trying to diminish it to any of the people who were affected, but the fact that people died does not give new meaning to your life, or transform our relationship with the universe and history.
I don't know what I think. It depends on my mood at the moment. But I feel guilty, for not remembering the date until I saw the front page of the newspaper, and for being here, for sending emails and writing Meiji no Matsuei and sending giggly comments, when surely there's other, better things I could be doing. Like... I haven't given blood in 6 months, and why didn't I take that opportunity in June when I knew I wasn't going to get another chance for a while? And I don't pay enough attention to the news, I need to start watching more than the Daily Show and skimming the newspaper. I don't know what needs to be done. But there's must be something other than updating to Livejournal.
On September 11th, I walked down the hall of my high school, clinging to my best friend's arm- which was unusual enough, because she was so shy and worried about social propriety that she hardly ever let me touch her- and another friend walked by. "We're going to go to war!" I shouted, laughing at nothing, because I was terrified and because there was nothing for me to do, and I hate feeling helpless, yelling across dozens of other people packed into that hallway and hurrying to classes. "There'll be another draft and it'll be us!" She rolled her eyes and lifted a hand in a sort of wave, already too far down the hallway to answer, and my best friend hissed at me to shut up because I was embarrassing her and we were going to be late. And today the sky is that pale blue that's so clear it doesn't look real, and there's not a single cloud, only the faint trail of an airplane or two, already fading away. The grass is that shade half-way between yellow and green, where it can't decide if it's going to wither away from the heat or spring back with the ever-cooler days, and the bees that have nested right outside our front door, which my father keeps spraying with pesticide that doesn't kill them, are out in swarms, and occasionally one tries to fly through my window with a dull thud. There're crickets somewhere not too far away, and I can just hear them under the music I'm playing on Winamp. Across the street, a single tree is silhouetted against a white house, and the leaves at the very top are beginning to shade into brown and red, still mostly green, but slightly darker than the rest of the tree.
I can't even decide what I think. I'm not mature enough for this, to know about what's good or bad and consequences and repercussions and meanings. I keep coming back to the same thing: that people are dead, and they don't get to see today, and that can't be right. That's too unfair to be the way the world really works. It's the only thing I'm certain of.
