nmah5289.xml

nmah5289.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-11-20

It was a beautiful day. I was running late to jury duty when I heard the first plane go over- I thought it was a sonic boom. People were standing on Centre Street pointing up towards WTC, which we could not see from that angle. We could see silver rectangles flying in the air- I realized it was paper. We thought it as a small two-seater, not a jet. It was only later when I trudged home past crying people and reached 16th street that I was able to turn around and finally see. And I began to scream.

Cloudless days make me feel edgy. I don't know if I'll ever fully appreciate a cloudless day and again. and the smell- the smell of rotting bodies and dust and smoke. Barbeques call it to mind. My apartment faces south. I watched the smoke rise for almost three months. I now know what it must have been like to live near Buchenwald. Or Bhopal. Or in Kabul. I still cry for no reason. I can't watch the news. I found myself about a month ago onthe same corner in Chinatown and began to panic- I thought it would happen again. It was months before I would go on a subway. When I go near St.Paul's Chapel, I start to cry. For close to a year I could have sworn that I saw ghosts in my apartment and on the streets- people who were in the plane or the towers who didn't know they were dead and were trying to get home. I lit candles for tham and told them that they could rest. I felt them all the time. Every now and then I run into people- normal, non-crazy occult-disbelieving people who would never watch John Edwards- who say they saw and did the same thing. We were trying to send the dead to rest.
If you don't live here, you may not understand what it's like to have almost 3000 of your neighbors disappear in 3 hours. I can tell you this- it's obscene. Wherever it happens it's obscene.
G-d and I- I don't know. For a while we weren't on speaking terms. What could be said? And then I realized, 'It must be like this in Afghanistan, too. The Taliban is fucked up, Al-Qaeda is fucked up- but people are coming home to bombed houses and lighting candles to help the ghosts get home.'And that's when I started talking to G-d and asking him to stop us from killing each other. Not for the sake of our leaders or our national pride, but so that no one else has to smell rotting bodies or light candles for the dead.

That massive death is a crime against G-d and man, no matter who carries it out. That no one should ever have to feel what I felt. That if I can't bear this pain and I live in a society with a support system and money, I can't make anyone else go through this pain either. That terrorism is evil, but we haveto look at why it starts- the terrorists aren't possessed by Satan and neither are we. That while we cannot reason with fanatics, they are not the only fanatics out there. Islam says it's wrong to kill innocents. So does Judaism and Christianity. We cannot kill indescriminately out of anger.

No, I didn't. I do plan to get a State of New York flag- because I realized how much I love my home. This all made me realize what a New Yorker I am.
I love the American flag. I actually have a copy of the Constitution and the Declaration on my desk. But the flag is in my heart every day, even before last year. My parents put it there when they told me about the Civil Rights Movement and how they had to fight to be seen as people. Wearing a flag or waving one won't make me more of an American; my family goes back on both sides to native Americans, some of the first slaves who came to these shores, and their Scots-Irish masters. One of my ancestors remembered the Emancipation.
People who hang flags- do they know what it really means to be an American? Do they vote? Do they sit on juries? do they read history? This is how we show we are Americans. We are Americans because we give peoople a fair chance for a decent living. Because we don't judge people by religion or country of origin. Because when we are called to serve as citizens, we do so without whining or looking for a loophole. Hsnging a flag out of a window does not make one an American. That's a fashion statement.

The flag is in my heart more than ever, but I won't wear it on my sleeve or behave like a sheep. I can disagree with my government and be patriotic. I'm anti-war until it is absolutely necessary, even though I support our individual troops, because they are in danger around the world. hwat happened to me that day was that I became aware that people from at least 68 nations worked in the towers. Unless I wear every flag, I won't wear any. Instead, I will hang my New York flag- this is where they all wanted to be, the most welcoming city for immigrants on the earth. The dead are all New Yorkers now, and so am I.