9-11 documentary
Mar. 10th, 2002 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threeplusfireI feel compelled to write about this, but don't feel compelled to read it if this will be too much for you.
I'm watching 9-11, making chocolate pies and sitting here with Melynda. A little nervous about this. The intro alone was enough to stop my breath, and I hear this voice in my head, breathe, okay?. All these unintended moments, shots of the towers in the twilight. My first trip to New York, in September 2000, pressed up against the window, marveling in the gigantic construction, a city unlike any city I'd ever seen. Those towers, gleaming over my head at five in the afternoon, the pigeons around the fountain in the courtyard where Patrick and I sat.
There is a part of me, that feels as if I have no right to ache this way. I do not live there, I watched it on television, and all the people I know were safe. Yet... God in Heaven. The first plane just hit and I can't imagine that it has been six months.
Flaming jet fuel straight down the elevator shaft.
When I think about what has been edited out.
Second plane. Out of a pure blue sky, the smoke and the paper whirling above the street. The anguish of the people on the street. That crashing, horrific sound that was a life ended.
When I think of how I felt that morning, wrapped in a blanket in front of the television, riveted, frozen, unblinking.
This is the single most horrific thing I've ever watched. I feel an obligation to watch, to witness this. Why I can not say.
Oh god. oh god, the rumbling, the sound of glass and metal, the darkening of the light. The tower is coming down. Oh god the sound...
A woman on the street, shouging, "What the hell is going on?"
One could almost wish this was a conventional war, with front lines of tanks and barb wire and machine guns. It would be easier to understand. Is this war? What is this?
I did not realize that evacuating was only slightly less dangerous, with all the things falling out of the sky. I can't imagine the effort required to clean the streets.
One unbearable shot of a man in slacks, a dress shirt and tie, carrying his briefcase, walking through the empty street, trudging past firemen. The dust makes rainbows in the sunlight.
The roar is like the sound of the plane, and the dust rains down, dark as night. When the light comes back, everything is white. A sandwich shop, where the girl in a black tank top hands water and towels to the firemen. A man is retching in the trash can.
Gods above, the men and women walking in the streets.
It just came down. It wasn't supposed to come down.
This moment, the ones that did come home. Affirming life with strong hands. A mirthless laugh, I've heard fuck on prime time at least a half dozen times now.
Watching them go back to the site is almost worse than watching it happen. Steel beams like dragon bones, twisted by flame. Everything collapsed dust. Pieces of bodies. Relentless digging.
I don't know what to say. Only that my heart aches.
I'm watching 9-11, making chocolate pies and sitting here with Melynda. A little nervous about this. The intro alone was enough to stop my breath, and I hear this voice in my head, breathe, okay?. All these unintended moments, shots of the towers in the twilight. My first trip to New York, in September 2000, pressed up against the window, marveling in the gigantic construction, a city unlike any city I'd ever seen. Those towers, gleaming over my head at five in the afternoon, the pigeons around the fountain in the courtyard where Patrick and I sat.
There is a part of me, that feels as if I have no right to ache this way. I do not live there, I watched it on television, and all the people I know were safe. Yet... God in Heaven. The first plane just hit and I can't imagine that it has been six months.
Flaming jet fuel straight down the elevator shaft.
When I think about what has been edited out.
Second plane. Out of a pure blue sky, the smoke and the paper whirling above the street. The anguish of the people on the street. That crashing, horrific sound that was a life ended.
When I think of how I felt that morning, wrapped in a blanket in front of the television, riveted, frozen, unblinking.
This is the single most horrific thing I've ever watched. I feel an obligation to watch, to witness this. Why I can not say.
Oh god. oh god, the rumbling, the sound of glass and metal, the darkening of the light. The tower is coming down. Oh god the sound...
A woman on the street, shouging, "What the hell is going on?"
One could almost wish this was a conventional war, with front lines of tanks and barb wire and machine guns. It would be easier to understand. Is this war? What is this?
I did not realize that evacuating was only slightly less dangerous, with all the things falling out of the sky. I can't imagine the effort required to clean the streets.
One unbearable shot of a man in slacks, a dress shirt and tie, carrying his briefcase, walking through the empty street, trudging past firemen. The dust makes rainbows in the sunlight.
The roar is like the sound of the plane, and the dust rains down, dark as night. When the light comes back, everything is white. A sandwich shop, where the girl in a black tank top hands water and towels to the firemen. A man is retching in the trash can.
Gods above, the men and women walking in the streets.
It just came down. It wasn't supposed to come down.
This moment, the ones that did come home. Affirming life with strong hands. A mirthless laugh, I've heard fuck on prime time at least a half dozen times now.
Watching them go back to the site is almost worse than watching it happen. Steel beams like dragon bones, twisted by flame. Everything collapsed dust. Pieces of bodies. Relentless digging.
I don't know what to say. Only that my heart aches.
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-10 09:07 pm (UTC)Please don't feel that because you don't live here, you don't have any right to feel this way. And fuck anyone who makes you feel that way. You feel what you feel.
Thank you for putting up such meaningful words.
Re:
Date: 2002-03-10 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-10 09:34 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-03-11 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-10 09:38 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-03-11 08:24 am (UTC)It is a weird thing. I can't help but wonder if people had these odd mixed emotions when hearing about the concentration camps. Perhaps better to compare it to Vietnam, since that was one television.
I feel bitter sometimes, about how I used to long for a generation-defining moment, other than Kurdt Cobain's suicide. Bitter too, about all the time we spent discussing the shortfalls of terrorists and how no one had thought to hijack a plane and crash it into a city... except we all thought it would be LA.