Ten Years

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hope

Yesterday felt like a vacancy. Maybe it was the heat, which drained me of all motivation. Or the solitude, with Monte out of town, and the general lack of a schedule. The only commitment I had was to be at home during a particular span of hours to wait for a repairman, and I dutifully obliged. This might have been productive time had I used it to write or do housework, or even just to read in a focused way. But the air was stifling, and my mind kept wandering.

Early in the day, I received an email from a dear friend of mine which concluded with these words: "I've found myself feeling unexpectedly depressed by all the run-up to the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thinking about how much we have all lost since then, and how much a few thugs with box cutters managed to take away from all of us."Yes, a few thugs with box cutters, twisted religious fervor, and hatred beyond all comprehension. Ten years. How can it be?

Each of us has his or her own memories of the day, and now I guess I am about to contribute to all the run-up and recollections...

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Monte was working out of town then too, and he called me from his motel room shortly after 6 a.m.

"Turn on the television," he said. And I did, and I watched, feeling sick.But I was teaching, so my daughter and I went to school, and at school that day nothing felt normal, and all the teachers improvised. I suppose "normal" was already being redefined.

And I still think of those kids and the fact that they probably don't even remember the way the world had been up until then. On September 15, 2001, I wrote these (admittedly wordy) thoughts:

There are those events in our collective history or personal lives after which everything is transformed.  Such events become markers which forever separate the era of before -- poignantly distant and irretrievable -- from the abruptly changed after.  Now, four days later, Saturday morning’s sunlight slips into my room. The tea kettle whistles, the kitchen smells of toast, the eager dog nudges me to take her out, and above the hills, a red tail hawk is gliding through an empty silent sky.

Ordinary things have stunning clarity today. I am reeling with their beauty, and I wonder at my previous indifference. I want to sit tight in a kind of Saturday zone of safety and hold this precious ordinariness against me. I want the people I love to be nearby and safe. I want time and death to ease their grasp. I want to awaken from my terrible dreams and find that everything is simply as it was.In another lifetime, I sat with a friend in a restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, listening to piano music as the city I loved twinkled below us in breathtaking splendor. It was a moment with all the romance and elegance of an old Hollywood movie. Last Tuesday, that building buckled to its knees; this fact alone is incomprehensible. Factor in  the fathomless terror and heartbreak of the human toll, and that this horror was planned and deliberate – the mind can neither process nor fully contain it.T

he world is filled with evil, and we are not the first to have suffered. Others have been victims of torture and genocide, fled bombed cities, and awakened daily to the agonies of hunger and disease.  We never wished it so, and many of us, burdened with our good intentions, flailed about in dismay, and made small, futile gestures, but by and large, we lived our lives as best we could. Those of us who gave it thought were well aware that it was more luck than virtue that landed us here in the broad arms of a plentiful land. I have heard Tuesday’s abominations attributed ultimately to dogma fueled by ignorance, poverty, injustice, and inequity of opportunity. I do not accept it. There is no excuse for inhuman behavior.

But can we ignore each other’s suffering?  We cannot. We are intertwined in a weave made tight and complex by technology, economy, environment, and all the vicissitudes of contemporary life. This is the modern embodiment of the Gaia principle, in which the whole planet is viewed as an organism.And it is this consciousness that must guide us in our response to Tuesday’s events. Our sense of rage is disorienting, the ambiguity of the enemy renders retaliation murky, and the lumbering uncertainty of what happens next weighs heavily upon us all.  It is impossible to ignore the profound personal agony that so many are enduring at this moment.But while sickened with the horror of what has been done, we must continue to maintain dignity, reason, and faith, both as a nation and as individuals.  Suffering does not separate us from the rest of humanity – on the contrary, it underscores our oneness, for none of us is immune. We must beware of labels, for good people of all faiths throughout the world condemn these heinous acts of terrorism and share our grief. We have borne witness to an attack not against America, but against decency and life itself.

“In a dark time," wrote the poet Roethke, "the eye begins to see."  What do we see more clearly now?  Is it that everything can change in an instant?  That hate and injustice exist?  These things were always true.  Please see also that we are brothers and sisters who share a living earth. Notice how desperately hatred seeks a target, how monstrously it can grow and spread.  Observe that immense evil can lose its power when good people stand together.  Recall, too, the small garden of truths you once knew – that kindness matters, that life is for learning, that love is a limitless force.  Never forget that children are watching, that hope is not optional, and that hope must fuel real deeds. And let us see clearly, with these dark-time eyes we now have, the unspeakable wonder of an ordinary morning.

It is ten years later, and I stand by that.

________________

"Because our country has entered into war, we can have no pleasant pauses anymore..."- Naomi Shihab Nye Then came the next stage. Maybe the word is retaliation? Revenge? An attempt to destroy the perpetrators of this horror? I was terribly uneasy about the wisdom of invading Afghanistan, but still willing to consider that there might be reasonable reasons behind it, and that there were possibly some sensible and well-informed people in charge who knew what they were doing and were far more knowledgeable than me. But then suddenly Iraq became the obsession, and I felt an unequivocal disconnect. I was ferociously opposed to that invasion and I still wish with all my heart that the Bush administration, whether through fear, stupidity, or despicable cynicism, had not distorted the 9/11 attacks into a justification for it.

I wrote the following words after March 19, 2003, when our nation bombed Iraq and became the purveyor of "shock and awe":

When did insanity take over? Was there a certain moment? I am shocked, yes. But awe? Awe I shall reserve for the wonders of the universe and the kindness and hope that lives in the hearts of some even after lifetimes of hardship. I thought the lesson of terror might have been grief and revulsion so profound we would wish never to become its perpetrators. With intelligent leadership it might have bred a new kind of resolve that would manifest itself in restraint, diplomacy, and compassion. Will we forge a world order based on fear and brute force? Then I am sorry for our sons and daughters whose aspirations are so earnest and touching, and for all the world's children, especially the ones who have learned to hate us. How do we turn this around? There is a long painful process ahead, even after the shock show concludes.

When I had an opinion piece along these lines published in a local paper, I actually received an email from a reader who accused me (and my ilk) of being pathetically naive. He suggested that since I apparently hated my own country, maybe I should go have tea with Osama bin Laden. I kid you not.

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Ten years later...and here we are, still embroiled after nearly a decade of war, trillions of dollars spent, many lives lost, the global atmosphere as pervasive as ever with poisonous distrust and unmitigated tensions. (We never did find any so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,  but countries who have them or possess the unsettling capability to create them include Iran, North Korea, Pakistan...so what was that about?)

Ten years later...and among Arab nations, there are the violent yearning stirrings of a "spring" emanating not from an outside invader but from within. Corrupt regimes, some of whom we once did business with, are being overthrown one by one, and unknown trajectories will ensue. We may perceive a shadow of Islamic fundamentalism waiting in the wings but hope some form of democracy prevails. Our role is not entirely clear to us, but in any case, our attention is diverted by our own domestic problems.

These are tough times economically, and we all know people who are struggling. Perhaps the burgeoning of Asian economies was inevitable and our own downturn unavoidable due to unsustainable greed and corporate corruption and a lack of visionary thinking, but certainly the enormous cost of ongoing war has taken its staggering toll.

Meanwhile we submit morosely to long security lines, taking off our shoes and being searched every time we travel––just a necessary evil, we suppose. Agencies, expenditures, and policies built around fear have certainly trumped, say, education, as a priority, and some of us wonder what that says about the evolving personality and values of our nation. The gap in this country between the rich and poor has widened. Opportunities for work and education have diminished. The populace is fraught with bitter divisiveness. Intelligent civil discourse and compromise have given way to irrational anger and resentment.

Ten years...and there remains a palpable sorrow in so many hearts, a sorrow that for some is intensely personal, but even for those of us who did not lose someone we knew and loved, it is real. It is national sorrow and a human one. September 11 marked a loss of freedom, innocence, and any solidity in how we saw the world.

_______

Even in the late afternoon the heat sat still and heavy. I went for a walk up the canyon and passed one spot where a current of cool fresh air had somehow found its way up from the sea and gotten trapped. I paused there, appreciating it in much the same way as one would sip water, clear and cold. Then I went to Jeanne's and bought some eggs her new hens had laid. They were small eggs, and blue.

All night I heard the crickets and the frogs.

_______

Ten years...

And if it is naive to persist in a belief that the good in people outweighs the bad, or that a stance of hope and constructive action, no matter how small, will ultimately contribute more to our survival than rage or despair, then yes, I am naive.  What else are we do?What do we see more clearly now?  Is it that everything can change in an instant?  That hate and injustice exist?  These things were always true.  Please see also that we are brothers and sisters who share a living earth. Notice how desperately hatred seeks a target, how monstrously it can grow and spread.  Observe that immense evil can lose its power when good people stand together.  Recall, too, the small garden of truths you once knew – that kindness matters, that life is for learning, that love is a limitless force.  Never forget that children are watching, that hope is not optional, and that hope must fuel real deeds. And let us see clearly, with these dark-time eyes we now have, the unspeakable wonder of an ordinary morning.