jlh | (no subject) (Reply)

First, thanks to everyone who cut away their writing--I'm sure I'll be able to read and appreciate it later, but today, no. Though, anyone who knows me knows that I never set foot in TDA because I can't really take it . . .

Last night when I got home I saw the ribbon at FA, and I know it's appropriate and even necessary, but somehow I didn't want to see it. Not one bit.

As the date grew nearer, I started remembering more details of that day, details that were usually left out of my emotionless recitation, the answer to "where were you" (I was home, I was at work, I called, I emailed, I chatted, I watched television, I cried but not until much later). I remember our local firemen already being gone when I walked by the station on my way to work. I remember emerging from my office to get some lunch and the only place open was McDonalds, and it was packed. I remember being concerned about ten or fifteen people that could be in danger (but weren't) and not thinking of the one person I knew who was, who didn't get out. I remember trying to give blood that, horribly, no one was going to need. I remember that what I was thinking about a few moments before was "Mark Green or Freddy Ferrer" (just like yesterday, it was Primary Day in New York) and "that plane seemed awfully loud."

I know now, as I never wanted to know, that I can keep my head in a crisis, that I can calm others and remain calm myself, that I can think clearly about what do to, how to help others, how to remain still when there is nothing to do, and that, true to my Maine Yankee heritage, to keep it together until I can fall apart on my own terms.

Outside I can see that this will be a gorgeous, crystal-blue day, one of those days that make you ache because it is so good to live in this city. Of course, that's the sort of day it was a year ago, and I don't think I can enjoy these beautiful days in New York in the same way anymore. They always remind me.

Any of you who have read my replies to political discussions here know that I don't really have that knee-jerk patriotism; my pride in my country is more nuanced, my feelings more ambivalent. But today, I'm going to let myself be just proud, just for one day, I think.

From Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given 19 November 1863:

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."