Thirsty Thursday: Volume I - One Year Later

I was in Sweden when it happened, on a train bound for Denmark where I was living and going to school. Has it been a year already? The weekend was spent with some friends I had met in Greece. The train swayed back and forth while I was in a state of reverie listening to my CD player. I burn a lot of CDs. That may even be an understatement. On this occasion I was listening to one I named “Retrospect.” As the name alludes, it is a collection of songs that make me think about things. Good times gone passed. The blessed present. Life yet to experience. These train rides are often long. This was no exception.

In foreign countries one learns to tune out languages that are not their own meanwhile possessing an acute ear for their mother tongue. So when the European guy across the aisle began speaking English on the phone, I turned the volume down. I only caught a bit of his conversation. He asked the person on the other line, who was from the U.S., “So what’s going on in your country right now?” The dialogue went elsewhere and I didn’t think too much about it. As I said, I was in reverie.

Late at night when I finally arrived back in Århus, Denmark, and got to my dorm the pieces began coming together. My roommates told me I should watch CNN because something had happened.

The first plane hit…then the second.

I was having difficulties discerning reality. How many movies had I seen where the plots were, “terrorists wreak havoc on a major city”? But this wasn’t Die Hard 4; this was reality in New York, Pennsylvania, D.C., and the United States, my home so far away.

There were feelings of helplessness. Being so far away there was nothing I could do, not that I could have done something, but I could have just been present with my family and loved ones. There were feelings of vulnerability. If something like the toppling of The Towers was possible, what could be next? Who could be next? There were feelings of ambivalence. Should we try to work this out peacefully maybe by getting the U.N. involved? Or nuke ‘em?

We fought violence with violence. Have we procured our retribution? Will Osama’s head bring closure to the hearts and minds of the friends and family of the nearly 3000 that were murdered? Maybe. Maybe not. When and if he’s dead, there will be someone to take his place. It shouldn’t be about a pledge to kill the Taliban until extinction, but rather a need to augment ideals in people’s minds. I know, I know. Way easier said than done. It will take time and who knows how long we have when fighting one war, while another is on deck.

A couple weeks after September 11th, a friend and I went to Copenhagen and visited the U.S. embassy. Flowers, cards, pictures, and New York paraphernalia lined the front of the building a block long. We took our time ambling around looking, reading, and sympathizing. A young Danish girl wrote a poem to those who lost their lives in the two towers, in a country that wasn’t hers. It made me think if any of us really care and have compassion for what goes on in other countries? To be honest, I really haven’t. If a young girl in a country of five million has the temerity to care what happens clear across the world, shouldn’t I also?

We each have different feelings about what happened that day and what continues to happen. Have you changed? The skyline in New York has along with our perception of safety and misconception of invincibility. We are all starting life new and rebuilding…

Now, one year later, I am still in reverie but I’m in an office staring at the clock on my desk that displays the date. September 11th. And I remember. But is that enough?

“Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”
Mao Zedong