Sobering thoughts from my former self
A visit from my 23-year-old semi-ex-pat self (forgive the naiveté and the factual errors, and the fact that I failed to link this day to my own government's blatant disregard for democracy in Chile - this was what I wrote in the moment before all the real news trickled down…)
And strangely… nothing is different, yet everything is changed.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Today truly is a day that will live in infamy. Pinna woke us up w/ the NEWS. We had all been feeling tense and upset since arriving from Cancun – which was accentuated when we ran out of gas at night in the middle of Periférico in bumper to bumper traffic after visiting Miguel’s great-grandmother Inés. We drove last night (evening) back to Yautepec in the rain with no windshield wipers and Pinna overly hysterical about leaving the girls alone to go home. In part that was due to the fact that the previous night at the gate to the parking lot right in front of the house, a woman was robbed of her car. In any case no one expected what was to come..
“Ilana – the World Trade Center is on fire – 2 airplanes crashed into the twin towers.” It didn’t occur to me that it would be a perfectly orchestrated terrorist attack, taking 4 commercial planes and hijacking them, crashing them into not only the twin towers, but the Pentagon and camp David. The twin towers crumbled before our eyes on live TV. I think the last time I have been so stunned by live television was when the Challenger exploded in 1984(?). It feels surreal and the images seemed like scenes from a Hollywood B-extravaganza which just goes to show how excessive the violence we watch on TV is. The most incredible thing is how Isabella keeps being a baby, just the same, playing, dancing, shouting, doing adorable intrepid things like serving herself water from the jug or opening the door w/ the help of a rug. Meanwhile my whole concept of security, the whole basis of our country’s power is crumbling before my eyes. In waves I start to assimilate and react. I begin to feel. Is Jenny OK? Clayton? Irv and Esperanza? Miguel’s cousin Eduardo? My parents are OK and I feel better knowing that, but I fear what kind of war might come of this. The Palestines in the west bank are celebrating and this evening there are fires in Kabul, Afghanistan. And once again I find myself a spectator of the World stage. We still don’t know who or how, or how many thousands of casualities and everyone becomes expert speculators on foreign affairs. I want to speak w/ Kirsten… I feel lucky dad was on board a plane ready to fly out when they shut down all US air space and airports. 2 of the hijacked flights were from Boston to LA, one from Dulles to LA and one from Newark to San Francisco. Human bombs hurtling through space to their unforgettable demise.
And these damn mosquitoes still bother me? How can that be when the world has been turned on its head and war seems imminent in a land that has grown fat and complacent in its belief that its soils would never again be soiled by foreign attack. And from my position, there is nothing that I can do but hope Bush doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and launch a war on the Middle East. And yet my humanity prevails as does Isabella’s as she joyfully clutches her Nanny whose missing head grasped in hand is no bother, and has no association whatsoever w/ violence. Life will, of course, go on, but what will it be like? What will we be like as a people, as a community, as a sovereign nation? I suddenly feel safer here in Mexico than in the US, and how can that be? I fear for biological warfare or worse, Nuclear warfare to come, and I think that I am being absurd. But what isn’t possible in a day where the World Trade Center ceases to exist in a matter of hours and the people of New York run through the streets as if Armageddon has truly and finally lunged upon us. And perhaps it has. The rain outside has darkened the night prematurely and Miguel is concentrating hard on fixing an old record player so that we might listen to music and be transported to another time, Cuba, when the world was in a Cold War and the US was the big bad wolf to Latin America…
Isabella asks for a ball, Mami, please. She crawls up me and tries to snatch the pen from my hands, as I write. Yes, I suppose life goes on, and I can be happy, as long as I allow the destruction to linger, just a little in the back of my mind. Death seems so small held up to those massive constructions: a snapping twig, a light goes out. But not one, not one-hundred not even a thousand points of light flicker out. A day closes and darkness falls on an uncertain tomorrow.
And strangely… nothing is different, yet everything is changed.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Today truly is a day that will live in infamy. Pinna woke us up w/ the NEWS. We had all been feeling tense and upset since arriving from Cancun – which was accentuated when we ran out of gas at night in the middle of Periférico in bumper to bumper traffic after visiting Miguel’s great-grandmother Inés. We drove last night (evening) back to Yautepec in the rain with no windshield wipers and Pinna overly hysterical about leaving the girls alone to go home. In part that was due to the fact that the previous night at the gate to the parking lot right in front of the house, a woman was robbed of her car. In any case no one expected what was to come..
“Ilana – the World Trade Center is on fire – 2 airplanes crashed into the twin towers.” It didn’t occur to me that it would be a perfectly orchestrated terrorist attack, taking 4 commercial planes and hijacking them, crashing them into not only the twin towers, but the Pentagon and camp David. The twin towers crumbled before our eyes on live TV. I think the last time I have been so stunned by live television was when the Challenger exploded in 1984(?). It feels surreal and the images seemed like scenes from a Hollywood B-extravaganza which just goes to show how excessive the violence we watch on TV is. The most incredible thing is how Isabella keeps being a baby, just the same, playing, dancing, shouting, doing adorable intrepid things like serving herself water from the jug or opening the door w/ the help of a rug. Meanwhile my whole concept of security, the whole basis of our country’s power is crumbling before my eyes. In waves I start to assimilate and react. I begin to feel. Is Jenny OK? Clayton? Irv and Esperanza? Miguel’s cousin Eduardo? My parents are OK and I feel better knowing that, but I fear what kind of war might come of this. The Palestines in the west bank are celebrating and this evening there are fires in Kabul, Afghanistan. And once again I find myself a spectator of the World stage. We still don’t know who or how, or how many thousands of casualities and everyone becomes expert speculators on foreign affairs. I want to speak w/ Kirsten… I feel lucky dad was on board a plane ready to fly out when they shut down all US air space and airports. 2 of the hijacked flights were from Boston to LA, one from Dulles to LA and one from Newark to San Francisco. Human bombs hurtling through space to their unforgettable demise.
And these damn mosquitoes still bother me? How can that be when the world has been turned on its head and war seems imminent in a land that has grown fat and complacent in its belief that its soils would never again be soiled by foreign attack. And from my position, there is nothing that I can do but hope Bush doesn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and launch a war on the Middle East. And yet my humanity prevails as does Isabella’s as she joyfully clutches her Nanny whose missing head grasped in hand is no bother, and has no association whatsoever w/ violence. Life will, of course, go on, but what will it be like? What will we be like as a people, as a community, as a sovereign nation? I suddenly feel safer here in Mexico than in the US, and how can that be? I fear for biological warfare or worse, Nuclear warfare to come, and I think that I am being absurd. But what isn’t possible in a day where the World Trade Center ceases to exist in a matter of hours and the people of New York run through the streets as if Armageddon has truly and finally lunged upon us. And perhaps it has. The rain outside has darkened the night prematurely and Miguel is concentrating hard on fixing an old record player so that we might listen to music and be transported to another time, Cuba, when the world was in a Cold War and the US was the big bad wolf to Latin America…
Isabella asks for a ball, Mami, please. She crawls up me and tries to snatch the pen from my hands, as I write. Yes, I suppose life goes on, and I can be happy, as long as I allow the destruction to linger, just a little in the back of my mind. Death seems so small held up to those massive constructions: a snapping twig, a light goes out. But not one, not one-hundred not even a thousand points of light flicker out. A day closes and darkness falls on an uncertain tomorrow.
posted by ilana at 9:34 p.m.
4 Comments:
Yo creo que no hay violencia que no nos genere un shock absoluto. Vos sabés que el gobierno americano no es mi favorito, pero politics aside, uno no puede, NO PUEDE dejar de ser solidario con el dolor de los demás. Hace 32 años en Chile, hace 4 en NY, hace 15 días en New Orleans...
Lo mismo digo yo, amiga de mi alma.
Ilana, perdoname que llevaba varios días de no pasar por aquí y no había visto este post en su fecha de publicación. Sobering thoughts indeed. Como dije en el blog de Sole, el 11 de septiembre es un día para pensar en los hijos que se quedaron huérfanos, los padres que se quedaron sin hijos, las madres que aún hoy no han encontrado a sus hijos ni sus restos para darles paz, los bebés en gestación que nunca conocerán a su padre, aquellos que prefirieron lanzarse al vacío antes que morir abarasados; los mensajes de amor y despedida en los celulares, las oportunidades que perdió un país entero por el cobarde golpe militar, etc.
¡Hoy es un día para honrar a las víctimas!
No os preocupéis... estoy de acuerdo, aunque aveces quisiera que el dolor ajeno no me llegara tanto.
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