Ten years gone, holding on, ten years gone

Ten years ago right now I was headed back home (or maybe already there) from dancing modern jive.  It had been a rainy night and I remember Heather and Aris, my companions, got to stay dry because I let them out at the venue (church basement) while I went to find a parking spot.  Little did I know that my dad's Aunt Berta, whom we all called Tante, had died that night.  Little did I know that a conversation I would have on the Queensboro Bridge with Aris, who was FOB from Greece, would haunt me the rest of my life.  And little did I know that my plans for the weekend would be altered.

I didn't know any of this.

But back to the rain and Aris and the trip across the bridge.  Aris was pretty shocked that we could get into Manhattan with relative ease.  No checkpoints, random searches, hoops to jump through.  He told me you can't do that in Greece.  Because the Turks, he said, fly their planes low over major cities, in an attempt to scare the Greeks.  That the conversation happened when it did, just a few miles (running distance!) from the World Trade Center, kind of haunts me.

I called in sick to work on September 11, 2001 because I was tired.  When I woke up, I turned on the TV and the second tower had just fallen.  I thought it was a movie.  Then I changed channels and realized that every station had the same news.  I screamed.  I wept for my country, and for my city, and for a life that would probably look a lot more Greek.  In fact, once I found out Tante was with Jesus, I cried because I'd miss her, but I did not weep for her lot in life.  She, at age 99, got out of here just in time.

That weekend I got indignant at all the people who didn't live around here and acted as though their lives were over.  Know what?  Terrorists don't give a crap about places like the Mall of America.  They do give a crap about New York and Washington.  That's why it happened here.  They didn't even care about Shanksville, PA.  That was just a chance encounter with terrorism.  The rest of America went back to their lives later that day, or the next at the latest.  They didn't have to cancel their friend's birthday plans because it just so happened they were in Soho and nobody was allowed down there.  They didn't have to go to their co-worker's wedding and see smoldering remains of towers from a catering hall that would otherwise have had awesome views of the Manhattan skyline.  At least that was my thought process.

I still roll my eyes at people who act as though the NYFD (sic.) personally saved their lives that day.  But I get it now.  New York is a symbol of all that is right about the United States.  We are our own culture and not really American in some ways, but in other ways we are the good things about America.  The melting pot of humanity, where every culture can exist and feel welcome.  We are the symbol of how capitalism works correctly, and the huge towers we've built are just one more proof that our way of life produces great things.  So in reality, the attack on my city was an attack on my country's ideals.

Ten years are gone, and two towers are now immortalized on all sorts of souvenirs aimed at the NYFD-loving tourists (who would also be the ones who actually wear their I <3 NY t-shirts in NY).  But the hatred towards our ideals still exists.  And I still mourn the loss of those days when we could cross into and out of our city without the threat of low-flying planes.