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> September 2001

• Thu, Sep 13, 2001 12:21 AM

  I suppose Phase II will begin pretty soon.
  
  Phase I is the shock. The “no fucking way did that really happen” sort of thing. And this thing is, well, so big that it takes a long while. Other major disasters were pretty easy to digest…I mean, a plane goes down, an earthquake happens, and it’s over, you process it, and move on. But this one has so many facets that you just turn over and over in your head…ways you never thought about it before, thinking what this must have been like from various perspectives, but no matter how you try, you just can’t get you head to process it all. No one can – and if they say they can, they’re bullshit. I’m almost 24 hours in and I’m still not even halfway through what the hell went down this morning.
  
  So we sit there, glued to the TV, and I wonder why I can’t pull myself away. Sure, I’m a big time voyeur, and you’ll even catch me watching Cops sometimes late at night. I always feel a little guilty, but there’s some odd void in all of us that needs filling. But this one I don’t want to watch, because there’s little scenes and details that you can feel being permanently etched in your head, and I just ain’t sure I want to be haunted by these flashes later. Sure, you saw the video ten times, but this time you saw a person jumping from a building, and, for some reason, that makes it all real. And then it stays. And then it goes from Hollywood or Somewhere Else to reality.
  
  So here comes Phase II. The personal stories, the cousin’s best man’s wife who was in the building, the body counts, the over-analysis, both in the media and with my friends. Phase II is when it hits you, when you finally get your arms around it.
  
  So where to? Fascinating to watch reactions. Immediate retaliatory violence seems to be the first instinct, but retaliate against who? Everyone calls it a war, but the enemy is like a dozen guys in some shithole somewhere in Afghanistan or something. Hardly a satisfactory enemy. For me, there will be a lot of personal mental queries to ponder. Will I fly again soon? Why do I live here (which we’d been asking ourselves a lot before this whole thing anyway)? What’s the appropriate way to show respect / move on / remember? Will I eye every passenger on every plane I ever take?
  
  It ain’t easy finding a silver lining in the huge smoke clouds over Manhattan. Violence for violence’s sake doesn’t go far. But I can take one thing out of this: the constant reminder that life is so, so short and utterly unpredictable. I’ve spent years researching the most reliable planes, safest airlines and weather patterns, none of which mattered at all today. While it is totally fucking scary, a part of me secretly feels that there’s something oddly reassuring (and Buddhist) in the idea that it’s all beyond our control. Once you let go, you can enjoy the moment without feeling the panic of your future plans. Roll down your windows when it’s cold out. Stare with amazement at the stars in the night sky. Do it because it doesn’t make sense. A lesson that thousands of people did not want to lose their lives over, but nevertheless, they have.
  
  
  

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