September 11th, 2002 - 12.58
I wanted to at least start this before September 11th was OFFICALLY over. It's been a weird day for me, waking up and stumbling out into the living room, and, as I always do, turning on the TV. Seeing those images, and American flags every which way, I got goosebumps. Every now and again, I break out with a serious case of the shivers and turning on the TV this morning was . .. well. Shivers.
I would love to say a million things have changed since that fateful day one year ago. And in some ways, they have. I've been sort of in awe of the propaganda I see everywhere. The insistance that bin Laden and the Taliban are stupid, goat fucking (oh the hits I'm going to get from that one little phrase) cave dwelling primates. I used to read about propaganda the US used against the Nazis during WWII. And now I'm seeing it on Jay Leno.
And I'm not going to lie. When on the Concert for New York, Adam Sandler as Opera Guy made the jokes, or the fireman gave his rousing speech I cheered. I want to mindlessly hate the people that did this to my country. Because I hate what they did. I'm angered and scared and rightgeous and I hate it. I went back to the coffee house I sat in for hours a year ago, and brought my paper diary and wrote, back where I started. A year ago, I bought a paper diary to start rolling around the word "war". War. It's such an ugly word. It's so squat and diabolical and I hate it. But on that day I needed to say it, to write it, to hear it. I thought it would be soon becoming a very real word in our every day vocab. And to an extent it has. War on terror, and Bush's idiotic "axis of evil". But I feel like I'm still waiting. Waiting for this all to really come to a head. For the proverbial shit to hit the fan because I would be lying if I didn't admit to some part of me that wants to see this ideology destroyed. But any terror orginiazation -- any orginization that uses fear to control people is one that I want to see go down. But mostly, I keep hearing this thing that my Political Science professor said earlier this semester. Our enemies are not as stupid or wrong as we think they are. I will never condone what happened on September 11th, 2001. Never. I will never condone that loss of innocent life. And I think that taking our own planes and crashing them into our own buildings was an act of war. When the war is officially declared, I don't think we will have started it. I think of that twisted steel, and the family members who only got credit cards back and the ghosts of the people who died, and I think of the effect on my family and friends, and this was not our fault.
At the same time, though, I can't help thinking about the Afghani mother who's sons have all died, who is so bone shatteringly used to this. The child who has only ever known war. The sons and daughters who have grown up with hate, justified or not, and I'm sad.
Edwin McCain has a song called "Prayer to Saint Peter"
"Let them in Peter,
For they are very t ired
Give them couches where the angels sleep
Light those fires
Let them wake whole again
To brand new dawns
Fired by the sun not wartime's bloody guns
May their peace be deep
Remember where their broken bodies lie
God knows how young they were to have to die
Well, God knows how young they were to have to die
Give them things they like
Let them make some noise
Give dance hall bands
Not golden harps
To these our boys
Let them love, Peter
For they've had no time
They should have bird songs and trees and hills to climb
The taste of summer
And a ripened pear
And girls sweet as meddow wind with flowing hair
And tell them how they are missed
But say not to fear
It's going to be all right
With us down here. "
And that's how I feel. Not only for our American heros, the men and women on the airplanes, the firefighters and emergency rescue workers and the kid in Kansas who sent a letter to the people in New York , and the Afgahni children, people, who also will be knocking at Peter's pearly gates. Let us know true freedom, freedom from hate, freedom from fear. All of us. Not just my country, the world. Let us know that the people we fight, we fight to protect ourselves, not because they are stupid or unhuman. Let us weep today for those we lost, but also for those a world away, who will sleep tonight on a threadbare mat on a dirt floor. Let us appricaite the humanity in everyone. And please, let us find peace.
