I was still living in Ohio on 9/11/01. I was on summer break from my freshman year of college, living at home, and working at a science museum. After the first plane struck the first tower, my dad called up the stairs to my bedroom, “Kate, I think you’ll probably want to be awake for this.” I came downstairs and watched as the second plane hit the second tower, and my dad told me I wasn’t allowed to go to work that day, and I thought he was being ridiculous.
But then again, I’m basically a sociopath who couldn’t understand why everyone across the U.S. freaked out in the coming days and weeks and months and years. I get being sad that so many people died. I get being scared about your safety. I even get being angry at the perpetrators, even though, you know, the U.S. bombs everyone all the time. But “Freedom Fries” and a bazillion shirts emblazoned with “Never Forget” and all that sort of rubbed me the wrong way.
You know what’s worth getting upset about? First responders being denied healthcare coverage. Yeah.
Anyway, despite my general cynicism, I’ll admit to being excited to watch the new World Trade Center tower and memorial pools go up from my office in downtown Manhattan, and I even get a little . . . I don’t know . . . sentimental? . . . about all of the remembrance ceremonies scheduled for this weekend. So when I saw this morning that Battery Park had been turned into a field of honor flags, even I felt some reverence.
The Sphere, a sculpture that stood between the World Trade Center towers
The Sphere with the partly-completed One World Trade Center in the background
the Statue of Liberty between the flags
In a way, I’m glad I was removed from all of the grief and upheaval surrounding the 9/11 attacks, but in a way, I’m sad I wasn’t one of the people walking home across the Brooklyn Bridge that day, wondering if the world would still be around the next morning.
7 Comments
The sculpture looks like a 3-D ‘smiley’ face, that had an accident.
Is that sociopathic enough for you?
I love your photos and the name Ettible photography is a very nice play on words. Me likes.
For the record, I was already going to join the military before 9/11/01. Mom’s my witness.
I’ve decided not to do any sort of memorial post myself, so I’m hoping you don’t mind my spilling my thoughts in your comments section. Forgive me?
A few things:
1. Love your pictures – great capture of the Statue of Liberty between the flags – and you claim to not be sentimental…
2. I agree w/bluz about the Sphere sculpture – smiley is exactly what I was thinking, too. :)
3. I was one of those people that you wouldn’t have related to at the time. I was already in a slump because I had decided that day to quit school (that I’d just started)… again…, and when I saw the news, first on the web, then at home for days, I lost it. My live-in boyfriend at the time was embarrassed by it, and I still don’t really understand why I reacted that way. I knew no one in NYC at the time and have still never been there. It was just weird. I couldn’t stop being sad and feeling unsafe.
I was working in the U.S. Court House in downtown Austin when the Oklahoma City bombing happened — because our building was also a Federal building and they had no idea if there were additional threats, we were evacuated, and they did an official search of the building. And, I was living in Boulder, CO, when the Columbine High School shooting happened and knew some people with friends in the area and a few that lived close by. I guess I felt like those experiences stripped a few layers of security from me, and 9/11 just made me wonder if we were safe anywhere. (I didn’t say it was rational. And *ahem* I cried 2 of the 4 times I went to see “Titanic” in the theaters, so there you go — my middle name is NOT “emotionally detached”.)
Anyway, even though I reacted that way at the time, I couldn’t (and still can’t) stand the license plates and t-shirts. Feeling the emotions is fine, but let’s not dwell, people, unless you actually KNEW someone involved, so I totally get what you’re saying there.
Okay, thanks for letting me rant (even if it was involuntary).
Dude… that should’ve been Courthouse, not separated. *sigh*
No, dude, I’m with you on this one. I despise melodrama for its own sake. It’s cheap, and it’s not a proper tribute for anyone.
The field of flags, however, is just about perfect.
You know what rubbed me the wrong way today? All the 9/11 themed comic strips in the Sunday paper. Beetle Bailey characters crying and Marvin the baby building the twin towers with his blocks. I hated the whole… obligatory-ness of it.
The funniest thing of all, though, was how this was maybe the first Sunday Dispatch in history that prioritized something else over the OSU football win on the front page.
Amazing photos!
“You know what’s worth getting upset about? First responders being denied healthcare coverage. Yeah.”
Me too.