Kate Bennett wrote: > > i don't know if any of you who were there on 9/11 watched it (don't know if > i could have if i'd been there as living through it once is surely enough) > but if you did, i wonder how you felt about it...
Debra Shea wrote: >Details varied but the story was always the same... I >love this person... I want her or him to come home. It wasn't talked >about for months, but anyone who'd been down there that day knew that >most of those missing people had become part of the ash that was >covering the city. In the show when the mayor's assistant talked about >grabbing handfuls of ash because it felt like her firefighter husband >was in it, I could only think, yes, he probably was, and how brave and >honest that in her sorrow she could be so aware of that. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to watch it or not, but then I was watching "The X-Files" movie on FX, the alternate Fox channel, found myself flipping during the ads (or was it during the movie?), and found myself at HBO right before it started... so I got sucked in. I did not watch the special that was aired in March for the 6 month anniversary; I knew that I was not ready for that, and in fact seeing The Sphere sculpture that used to live in the WTC plaza was too much of a circuit blower for me (they rededicated it in Battery Park on 3/11, and I work just a couple of blocks away, so I went to go see it.) But by last weekend I did feel somewhat ready to confront the reality of the footage again. Of course, it was devastating. I feel that the producers went too far at some points -- I for one did not need to see more than one person jump, more than one time. And I really didn't need to see one of the jumpers sprawled, post-mortem, on the ground. That, I think, was crossing the line of decency. It was perhaps an unhealthy thing for me to watch the film. I really relived a lot that I would care not to, but I imagine that I will relive it in bits and pieces for the rest of my life. However, one good thing about it was that I really, really, really cried while watching it, and that was a relief of sorts, as I was almost totally unable to cry for months after 9/11. It was really only after visiting Alison in Utah at the end of March (thank you again, forever and ever, Alison) that I started to emerge from my brain fog and frozen emotions. Much of the footage I had seen before, but there was one series of images that was taken from a helicopter, and those images I had not seen before, and it was the view of 2 WTC from above just as it started to collapse. I was astounded by the deadly grace with which the roof sank, almost as if it had been lifted up slightly before it fell. It was almost as if the force of gravity had been made visible for a split second. And then the top floors cascaded down underneath it with the perfect symmetry of a deck of cards. It was horrifying. And it was unavoidable that I counted down the floors to 105, 104, 103, etc., and imagined my friends who were on those top floors, their last phone calls cut off abruptly, probably instantaneously with their lives. One of the most painful things to think of, and I find myself perversely unable to will myself not to think of it, is imagining their last moment of awareness. The absolute horror and terror that they must have felt. I imagine things that are better left unwritten. And then the inevitable thoughts that Debra described, the realization that we breathed in those people. It's not a hypothetical. The fire recognized no distinction between steel, concrete, bone and flesh. All was returned to a simpler form. And I also felt an overwhelming empathy for the mayor's assistant, grabbing handfuls of ash knowing that her husband was in it, and thank you Debra for putting it so beautifully, "how brave and honest that in her sorrow she could be so aware of that." The nature of the ash, the smell of the burning rubble for months afterwards; and on occasion, that other smell of war -- these were definitely the unspeakables of life in downtown NYC. And if HBO's purpose was to try to transmit the horrors, the unspeakables, to people who were not there, then they succeeded. I think that's probably a good thing for Americans not living in NYC, it's important to understand. I think it must be difficult to imagine the scale of the horror if you're not familiar with the scale of the buildings themselves or aware of how many people worked there. (I know that I didn't really understand the Oklahoma City bombing, for example.) I think the repetitiveness of the footage, especially the aerial views, helped to put into perspective just how enormous those events were. And how unspeakable they were. It is to me truly miraculous that less than 3,000 people died that day, because by rights it could have been 25,000 or more (there were close to 100,000 people working in the whole complex.) And it is also truly horrifying that a group of human beings would plot to destroy so much and potentially kill that many people in such a way. And further, and this is what always gets me, that these humans had, right up until a few seconds before, the ability to choose not to go through with it. They totally buried any human compassion that resided in their hearts -- how amazing, how terrifying. And knowing how truly sociopathological the rest of them must be as well, that's what makes it so difficult to remain here, especially with all the attack warnings of the past week and a half. Because the threat is real, there are people in this world who would be happy to see this city cease to exist, and they will someday have the means to fulfill their vision; and how on earth do we deal with that information? Denial is my drug of choice these days, because I have decided to stay here. So, this was an incredibly long response to Kate's question. I feel like what I've just written was perhaps more of a diary entry than an email, but I do have a lot to say these days, it seems. Thanks for listening. Kay
