It's terribly hard to express to people who weren't stateside when it happened what 9/11 really felt like.
I wasn't in New York, but I was too close to it for comfort. Two of those planes came from Boston- I watch similar flights taking similar routes take off and land daily during my commute. It's almost a year late but the sound of planes still makes me flinch sometimes, especially if they're flying a bit lower than usual.
There truly aren't enough words in the human language to express it. It's something you have to see and feel. True, we all saw it on TV, and we've all seen the photos and other images of NYC, DC and Pennsylvania since... but until you drive by that ever familiar NYC skyline and see the quite blatant and painful hole where those towers once stood, it's hard to make it real. :-(
I stood beside those buildings when I was 14 years old and marvelled at their grandeur. I'd never seen something that big in my life. They more than impressed me, and to see them fall was devastating... all the more so for knowing the lives that they took down with them.
If they truly want to know what 9/11 felt like for an American, have them take everything they've ever known-- the safety of their homes, the security of their country, the stability of the world around them.. and in one moment, have it destroyed. It feels like war. It feels like innocence lost. It feels like the heartbreak in the eyes of a young child who now has to learn what death is because their mom and/or dad will never come home from work again. It's the amazing capacity of the human spirit to for one moment lay aside all strife and come together to gather around their wounded neighbors. And it was flags waving and candles burning in every city and town from Boston to New York, Chicago to LA, New Orleans to Seattle. It was a unity we rarely actually see, though we know it to exist.
That is pretty much what 9/11 felt like from my point of view, verbose at it may be.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2002-08-04 07:02 am (UTC)I wasn't in New York, but I was too close to it for comfort. Two of those planes came from Boston- I watch similar flights taking similar routes take off and land daily during my commute. It's almost a year late but the sound of planes still makes me flinch sometimes, especially if they're flying a bit lower than usual.
There truly aren't enough words in the human language to express it. It's something you have to see and feel. True, we all saw it on TV, and we've all seen the photos and other images of NYC, DC and Pennsylvania since... but until you drive by that ever familiar NYC skyline and see the quite blatant and painful hole where those towers once stood, it's hard to make it real. :-(
I stood beside those buildings when I was 14 years old and marvelled at their grandeur. I'd never seen something that big in my life. They more than impressed me, and to see them fall was devastating... all the more so for knowing the lives that they took down with them.
If they truly want to know what 9/11 felt like for an American, have them take everything they've ever known-- the safety of their homes, the security of their country, the stability of the world around them.. and in one moment, have it destroyed. It feels like war. It feels like innocence lost. It feels like the heartbreak in the eyes of a young child who now has to learn what death is because their mom and/or dad will never come home from work again. It's the amazing capacity of the human spirit to for one moment lay aside all strife and come together to gather around their wounded neighbors. And it was flags waving and candles burning in every city and town from Boston to New York, Chicago to LA, New Orleans to Seattle. It was a unity we rarely actually see, though we know it to exist.
That is pretty much what 9/11 felt like from my point of view, verbose at it may be.
This anniversary is going to be hard. :-(