light reading: the dumbest girl in the world reflects on 9/11

Friday, sep. 13, 2002   |   0 comments

I woke up on Wednesday feeling terrible, just black-hole depressed. I lay there a long time, not really thinking anything much, just trying to balance and sort the sickness in my head. It wasn’t until I turned on the radio and the anniversary coverage hit me that I remembered.

I hadn’t forgotten, exactly. The ball park is about four inches away from my work, and earlier this week they blanketed the whole Willie Mays statue area with huge red-white-and-blue banners that listed all the names. And on the way home from school Tuesday night, I spied a forgotten newspaper on BART and it was riddled with One Year Later stories. I didn’t even need to read them, the headlines were enough. “Nation on Heightened State of Alert,” “Mental Health Experts Warn against 9/11 TV,” “It Looked Like a Movie.”

So I knew it was coming. I even had a vague sort of plan to steer clear of television all day to avoid seeing the monstrous footage again. I also hoped to miss out on the gooey, unnecessary sentimentalism that the cynic in suspected our media would come up with, given a year to prepare. Fades and cross-fades of torn and battered American flags rippling in the dawn’s early light, saluted by orphans and widows with a marching band playing “God Bless America” in the background and a splashy, 3D “American Remembers” graphic rotating slowly in the corner of the screen. I didn’t think I could handle any jingoism, either. (Do I even have to say “a jingo ate my baby” here? Or can I just assume that’s what we’re all thinking and let it go unsaid? Oh.)

I was so focused on how I might react to the coverage of the anniversary, I never considered that I might still be dealing with the actual event itself. But the horror and sadness and fear, buried just a year deep in my brain, were all still there, whether or not I turned on my television. And even if I wasn’t actively keeping track of those feelings, my body was.

Once, back in the Therapy Days, I told my brain lady that I had been dreading seeing her that day. As I sat there, cupped by the huge, fluffy, beige chair, surrounded by role-playing figurines, diplomas, kleenex boxes and sand boxes, I just felt so defeated.

“I feel like I’m never going to be fixed, like I’m going to be stuck here forever!”

She nudged the tissue box over to me with her toe and asked me, “Do you know how long you’ve been coming here?”

“Four months?”

“No.”

“Seventeen years?”

“Nope. One year, exactly. To the day.”

“Huh. Weird. I had no idea! I’m sorry, what’s the traditional gift for the first anniversary? Krill?”

She laughed (she was a good therapist that way) and said, “You may not have known, but your body must have. You’re probably tracking the position of the sun subconsciously. Perhaps the light quality in the room today reminds you of the first time you came here. Or maybe the temperature is the same.”

How true. (Yet another $100 well spent!) People always talk about the way a taste or smell brings back memories, but sometimes it’s the day itself that triggers the nostalgia. A few weeks ago, Liz and I were walking down the street after eating a huge breakfast at Boogaloos. The air was cool and I could smell wood smoke in the air and it felt like one of the first really Fall days of the year. We were seeing Camper Van Beethoven that night, but our afternoon was wide open. And all of it came together — the full stomach, the lack of anything pressing to do combined with plans for something fun on the horizon, the smell in the air, the white cast the low-slung clouds gave everything — and transported me to a much younger time and space. “I feel like I’m in seventh grade and there’s a big dance tonight and all we’re going to spend the rest of the day picking out outfits,” I said, swinging my arms happily. That was the thing. I didn’t remember being twelve, I felt like I was twelve, in a good way. (Lucky for me, I’m twenty years older and wiser now, so it only took an hour to pick out my outfit.)

So when I woke up on September 11th, my body was doing that same Pavlov dog thing, only this time in a bad way. I think being in bed helped underline the feeling, since that’s where I was when Leah woke me up, crying on the phone, the first time around. The sun was in the same place and the sky was the same color, I think. And before my mind did any conscious remembering, I was back there. My coping strategy for the day may have been sloppily assembled and poorly considered, but it didn’t really matter because I was destined for a sadness coma no matter what I did.

I forced myself to go to the gym, hoping that it might make me feel three ounces better. But of course every single TV in there was playing the footage. I don’t think you’ve really lived until you’ve openly, publicly wept at 24 Hour Fitness. So sexy! I can already smell the missed connection: “You: crying on the elliptical trainer. Me: working my inner thighs and staring at you in the mirror. Can I spot you?”

Anyway, I just gave into it at that point. I went home, curled up in a crocheted comfort blanket, and watched me about four hours of 9/11. Some of it was unnecessarily brutal (the grouping together of all the babies born without fathers since the attack seemed a little artificial, especially when they, along with their mothers, were presented in one, heart-wrenchingly long line). Some of it was amazing (the documentary of one fireman, Tony, which had begun filming the June before September 11th and just happened to catch the whole tragedy, was eerie and moving and just a good movie in general).

Watching everything made me feel shocked and afraid and hurt all over again. But I’m glad I did it. At the risk of sounding totally new aged, it felt, well not good, but appropriate, to have my brain finally in synch with my body. It’s not something I want to feel ever again, but I’m grateful I remembered.