September 11, 2011
The Decade Since
I realize now that those in history whose lives were short and mean and threatened by sword and disease gathered and told stories not as leisure, but as desperately needed distraction, and reassurance that they were not alone.
So if art cannot contain or describe this event, and if for now the suffering is too keen to be alleviated by parable… if stories are for the moment not as critically needed, as courage, as medicine, as blood, as bacon, they can at least revert to this social function. As time goes on, this will all pass away into memory, into a story with a beginning and a middle and finally an end.
The above quote is from John Hodgman’s McSweeney’s column on September 25, 2001, where he discusses narrative in the context of the attacks. This morning, for probably the first time since maybe 2002, I sat down and actually pondered the events of 9/11. I sat and looked through the many photos provided by The Atlantic and read columns from that strange time, reflecting on what this would all mean. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it a decade later, but I think most striking is the sheer sadness and emotion captured through the lens and in the words that were written.
I jokingly told a friend last night that I remember where I was the last time someone asked me if I remembered where I was on 9/11. Nowadays, I tend to think in broader terms about September 11th – namely how we’ve responded with irrational fear to the slightest threat of terrorism in our post-9/11 reality. But I had a moment this morning where I felt almost shameful at how much I had allowed things to gloss over in the years since. Not in a hollow sort of “remembering 9/11 as a form of dime store patriotism” way, but more in how much we’ve let the genuine feelings of unity and pride we felt for our neighbors slip, thrown away as talking points in elections or manipulated as tools of demagogues.
If September 11th was ever meant to be a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, I sometimes wonder whether we’ll ever get the closure of a happy ending.
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Thank you, Josh. The Hodgman quote is perfect. Your comments are as well.
Well said, Josh.
Thanks folks.
Josh, once again I’m reminded of the end of the story, Angel, in Harold Brodkey’s “Stories in an Almost Classical Mode.” When an angel made an appearance in the sky above Harvard Square.
“…Or rather, it was all journalism and shock at first. And then came lyric attempts and much cross-referencing back and forth.
“Only after many years were there convincing but frail and as if whispered attempts at honesty, of which this is one.”
That’s fine, Rick.
Further, I’m feeling lost this evening. For one, I finished the [WB series] Roswell. There were 75-ish hours of episodes. A bug bit me watching the first episode. And it is sappy, sentimental and downright maddening in points. (I guess I am a seventeen-year-old girl at heart.) I got invested and had to see it through. This morning, I meant to finish it. I watched the last four episodes, end-to-end. A happy, but sad ending. Saying, “Good-bye.”
I remember reading a quote, or hearing someone say, “It’s better to be the person(s) leaving [the adventure ahead of them], than to be the person left behind.”
Rick, thank you. You just gave me one more excellent adage to share with a friend who is struggling over leaving versus being left behind.
I, of course, am urging him to leave — in search of new adventure.
Here is the start of Angel.
I vaguely remember Lish saying something like, “Brodkey, he’s a force. He’s not a nice man. You wouldn’t want to have him over for dinner.”
I think I remember something along those lines as well.