9/11 + 11

When I first started this blog a couple of months ago, I imagined a weekly blog of generally funny stuff. Interestingly, I'm finding myself approaching this somewhat schizophrenically. Funny one week (or trying to be) and reflective the next.
So...I'm feeling the latter. I saw the remembrances last Tuesday and thought it was handled perfectly. The list was read alphabetically, by two people who lost someone in the attacks. When the list came to the names of these first two people, members whose last name began with "A", each person read a brief memory of the one they loved. The remembrances continued from an adjacent podium, in the same manner. I watched A-Z and cried my eyes out.
I did not know anyone who lost anyone in the attacks. The worst obvious effect on me, a native New Yorker, is the loss of the iconic skyline. And that's not insignificant. It doesn't measure anywhere near the tangible losses felt by so many. But I have so many memories of seeing that skyline looking east from the NJ Turnpike, or even better, looking west from Brooklyn. I was atop the WTC in, I think, 1974. The view was intoxicating. I looked at that skyline when I'd hit the city after having driven 13 hours when I was on break from graduate school in South Carolina and I always got a second wind. I'd see the skyline and I imagined a lot of noise, great food, constant commotion, and a cacophony of accents, mostly New York accents. In short, I imagined the soul of the city I grew up in.
I have a love/hate relationship with New York. Always have. I love the rush of "New York"ness I get when I arrive at Grand Central Station from my home in Connecticut. I go up the escalator. I see the clock in the center of the station. I step out of the station on to 42nd Street and, as I always do by tradition, go to the nearest hot dog stand and order a knish. Extra mustard. I revel in everything New York. I love my Mets and despise the Yankees and wear my baseball emotions on my sleeve. And I feel especially grateful that I grew up in the Bronx and Queens. But I hate the mania of the city. That's why I keep my distance.  
I do whatever I need to do...maybe go to Central Park. Take in a museum. Grab a bite at any deli. After 3 hours, I'm ready to head back. I've had enough. Nothing negative...just exhausted. New York can do that to me. It's a city of sensory overload, always defeating my capacity to take it all in.

I don't have any special 9/11 stories. I know where I was (at work). I know I was worried about my son and stepsons, all in middle school. I took the proper precautions. Like everyone, I was devastated and royally pissed off. I never have felt, before or since, more American. The terrorist bastards didn't just attack my country. They attacked my city. They took away my skyline.
I supported the way President Bush responded. Essentially saying, "Give us the terrorists or we'll get them ourselves." Even when people like Jerry Falwell blamed feminists and other people who scared the sanctimonious daylights out of him, I didn't blame him. I thought that was just him venting. We were all out of our minds with anger.
That's why I find it hard to believe, 11 years later, that we could be so divided as a nation. If I was a terrorist, I'd clap my hands with joy every time we personally attack each other, be it verbally or otherwise. I'd say, "This is exactly what we wanted. I don't have to lift a finger or plan another suicide bombing. The stupid infidel Americans are doing our work for us."
I'm extremely analytical by nature. When something goes wrong, I take some pride in being one of the few people who tries to put myself in the mind of those who commit the offense. I tried to imagine what kind of monsters could perpetuate such an attack. I failed. I shifted my energies to try to understand how one American could so badly disparage a fellow countryman or woman. How our past president, who tried to defend our country, could be portrayed as an idiot. (Although I still stand by belief that the war in Iraq WAS tragically idiotic). Or that our current president is some combination of a socialist, Muslim, and an alien.
I try to imagine what motivates people like Rush Limbaugh, or Bill Maher, to show such sustained meanness. I have a theory, and a pretty good one. It's called money and/or fame. The more outrageous I become, the more you'll listen to me. And the richer you'll make me. My method is to become a human train wreck. You'll watch me just like you'll watch the ruins of a train wreck. Except even better, I'll recreate the wreck on a daily basis. And you'll listen. Before long, you'll see the world as I do, as a place of good and evil, with nothing in between. No shades of gray. Just the world wrapped up in one tidy, monochromatic package. I just simplified the world for you. Naturally, you're thankful because you don't have to do the arduous work of seeing inside people, getting to know them. These so-called Americans, be they on the right or left, are now your enemies.
Back to my own persona...I work Friday mornings at my local VA Hospital, helping veterans find their way, geographically, in a rather large hospital complex. My inner question, which I never verbalize is, "Is this what you fought for? Is this what you put your life on the line for?" I may just approach my veteran friends one day with this question.
I decided a year ago to go back to school to become a psychotherapist, via becoming an LCSW (licensed clinical social worker). I did this primarily to help veterans and to use my natural skills of empathy along with my musical ability as my primary tools. Because if I was a veteran, it would be hard enough to adjust to life stateside. But I should NOT have to witness the people I fought for fighting like pre-adolescents.
I always thought a good way to remember 9/11 is to call the day "National Unity Day." We don't have to take the day off. That's not our style, although I personally think it would be the right thing to do. But is it too much to ask of everyone to remember where they were on that fateful morning and to look at our fellow Americans as fellow countrymen and women, and not the enemy?