nmah173.xml

nmah173.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

I first heard about the attacks on the car radio as I was driving to the college I attend. When I arrived, students, faculty and college employees were gathered around a big screen television in the fireside lounge. I joined them and we watched the ghastly events unfold together. An hour later, dazed, I made my way to the computer center to e-mail family and friends. My subject line: CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT'S HAPPENING? My message, in essence, was that "one" of the towers had been hit by a plane and there were unconfirmed reports that the Pentagon had been hit. Classes were suspended and many of us left immediately. All I could think of was to go get my son and when I got home I phoned my husband at his work. After that I was "useless", crying in front of the TV all afternoon and evening. Watching the tragedy over and over as the media switched to full coverage and presented recap after recap.

Overtaken by Pessimism

On September 11th, we Americans were forcibly stripped of our sense of security. History will record this as yet another delicate age of innocence peeled away and lost forever. Because of the threat of terrorism it would be unlikely that I will ever fly on a commercial airplane, feel at ease in metropolitan settings or look at a piece of mail as innocuous again. PARANOID, you bet, inappropriately so - NOT IN THIS DAY AND AGE. I asked myself the question that was probably asked the last time Americans faced a loss of the thin sheathing of an innocent age, what kind of a future faces our children? The answer, SADLY, a far more restrictive one than we faced.
Written on 12/06/2001 for the ?Sept 11 Artists Respond? exhibit.

Yes, my family has flown the American flag at our home even when it wasn't "fashionable". The only result of September 11th was that we finally put in a permanent flag pole that we had been planning for some time. Our feelings of pride have magnified since September 11th.