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Thu. Sep 11, 2003

A Day of Remembrance

Just like two years ago, I was up until nearly 3am on the morning of September 11, doing web work. But today, I set the alarm and set aside the morning to reflect and remember.

I watched the reading of the names of victims at the site of the World Trade Center. Each time a child would reach the end of their list and close by saying the name of their parent, grandparent, uncle, or whichever loved one they lost on 9/11, my heart would try to escape through my throat. Hundreds of times, it brought home the deeply human loss of that day, in very individual terms. And hundreds of times this morning, that fragile emotional state many of us suffered two years ago returned, in empathy with a child’s loss.

As I’d mentioned, I’d saved a Christmas present just so I would have it for this day. It’s the book Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs (also available via Amazon). It is perhaps the most stunning collection of photographs I’ve ever seen in book form. Nearly a thousand of them, and collectively they tell the tale of New York two years ago in a manner that also captures the essence of American Democracy.

From the book’s introduction: “In those turbulent days it seemed as if everyone in New York had a camera, and we decided that the exhibition should be as broad and inclusive as possible, open to ‘anybody and everybody’ � not just photojournalists and other professional photographers but bankers, rescue workers, artists, children, and amateurs of every stripe.”

“The guiding principle of here is new york is a simple one. If one photograph tells a story, thousands of photographs tell not only thousands of stories but also perhaps begin to tell the story if they are allowed to speak for themselves, to each other, and to the viewer directly, unframed either by glass, metal or wood, or by preconception or editorial comment. In the political sphere it is this principle, after all, which America�s Founding Fathers advanced when they developed the notion of democracy � that wisdom lies not in the vision and will of any one individual, or small group of individuals, but in the collective vision of us all.”

And, perhaps not surprisingly, that “collective vision” is considerably harsher than the one preserved by major media. You see it in the bloody and debris covered faces captured on the streets, and the graffiti left behind in the dust of the collapse. It’s there in the full page closeup image of the gaping hole in the North Tower, right in the center of the frame: a single small human form amidst the disaster, a red headed woman at the edge of the hole, leaning out in search of an escape she would never find.

You feel it when you turn the page, and it takes you several seconds to realize what you’re looking at: a severed woman’s leg, flayed almost beyond recognition except for the shoe and toes. It brings home the grisly method of murder thousands suffered that day, harshly, in a way the major media never has. It’s a horrid detail, shocking in its stark presentation.

But it is what happened that day. And we should never forget.

Thu. Sep 11, 2003

Two Years On

Two Years On – (this is the text of the special home page from 9/11/03, archived here) A year ago on this day, I wrote “You shouldn’t be here today. I didn’t lose a loved one on September 11, 2001. None of my relatives gave their life in military service to their country in Afghanistan. I was just another shell shocked American watching from a safe distance wrapped in the comfort and safety of their home.”

“But today, there is nothing I can say that is relevant, except, you shouldn’t be here right now. Go pray, meditate, take a thoughtful walk, or partake of the far more pertinent memorials offered today in various places, in various ways.”

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The same is true today, perhaps with a twist. I have no fingers to point, no political point to be made. You can surely partake of that in various other places today. And you can find it here … on any other day.

But today, I’m going to spend some time with an item I’ve been saving a while. For Christmas, my wife gave me a book I very much wanted, “Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs.” When I opened it Christmas morning, I leafed through a few pages, but a voice in my head said “save it.” I haven’t touched it since, but I will spend today going through the nearly 1,000 images, thinking about the thousands of innocent lives taken on that day. Human lives of all varieties, all religions, all ethnicities, all sexual, social and political classes.

I’ll think about the widespread good those lives could have generated in the past 730 days. If they’d been allowed to simply continue living them. I’ll think about the fact that nearly half the victim’s families have not even one shred of identified remains of their loved one. I’ll think about the widowed spouses, and the gaping hole left in their lives by having the love of their life ripped from it so suddenly and violently.

Perhaps most of all, I’ll think about the children who lost a parent that day. Of all the horrid after effects of that day, I think that one haunts me most. Some were in their mother’s womb, and will never know their father. Many were too young to grasp what happened, but maybe now, two years on, they do. All of them will grow to maturity with an ever developing perception of that loss.

By comparison, what happened to me on that day was of no note at all. But I’ve written about it, for the reason so many others have … to document where we were and what happened to us on that fateful Tuesday. Just another Voice. But I’d much rather you read the story of what happened to another photographer on that day: “ ‘I’m OK, I’m with the firemen’: A Tribute to Bill Biggart.”

It is the best tribute I can offer to any one of the thousands lost on that day. And that is all today should be about.

Wed. Sep 10, 2003

Another Voice

Another Voice – (inspired by Michele’s Project, Voices) When the first plane hit, I was still wrapped in slumber in the comfort of my bed, and I watched the second plane hit from the safety of my living room. So I don’t have a heart wrenching story about what happened to me the morning of 9/11, or maybe even a point. I’m just another person who will never forget where they were on that morning. And what they witnessed, even from afar.

I’d been up very late the night of September 10. At least 2:30am, according to the time stamp on this tutorial I was writing. I still had to complete the print versions, but I was tired and put it (and myself) to bed a bit before 3am.

Having set the alarm for just before 9am, when it went off I very sleepily heard the radio blaring something about a plane hitting one of the towers at the WTC. So, half awake, I crawled out of bed, bypassed my usual first stop at the coffee pot, and instead headed to find the remote control to the TV in our living room. Sleepily switch on the news.

I had stopped about seven feet from the TV, purely because that’s where I found the remote. I stood stock still in that spot for a long time. I’m really not sure how long. At least ten minutes. Because a minute or so after tuning in, I watched the second plane hit.

Only partially awake, I couldn’t fully take in what I was seeing in those first moments. A terrible accident at one of the towers. Lots of smoke and confusion, both in the visuals and the announcers. And then clarity: the second plane slamming most deliberately into the South Tower, followed by an instant realization, one that has hardly faded since.

This is war.

The next hour and a half were spent flipping between news channels, and futilely trying to find news on the web. Futilely seeking some kind of answer to questions that could never be answered. What I remember of that morning is mostly anger. The tears came a bit later that day, as the full weight of the human toll became more clear, often in very individual terms.

The anger can be heard in the first entry I managed to make that day, at 10:32am: “Much is yet to be determined, but one thing is for certain: War has been declared against us. In their mind, it’s been that way for some time, but there should no longer be any doubt in our mind. We have minimized these events in our own minds by calling them ‘terrorist actions.’ Like it or not, this is WAR. It will continue to be waged against innocent Americans in an organized manner, until we do something about it.”

“The second Trade Tower just collapsed. Out of the rubble, we must rise and overcome those who would destroy us.”

Words of defiance, but it was no simple process of “observation equals conclusion.” Like nearly everyone, I struggled mightily with what I’d seen, as expressed in “The Day After : Sensory Hangover”: “I’ve only had about 4 hours sleep, as my brain was very reluctant to shut down last night. It had received so much sensory input, of such a visceral and previously unseen nature, it seemed to be working overtime to sort and file the day’s events, often coming up empty on just where to place this particularly ugly fact, or that previously unseen horror. Crippled by the very data it was handling, it was like a 386 processor trying to process and render a 100 megabyte 3D file. It was going to take a very long time, and would likely fail in the process.”

A very long time indeed. Two years. And though I understand much more than I did that morning, there are some things that can never be understood. Some things that are simply unprecedented, without equal, and ultimately without resolution.

And yet we try, with varying degrees of success. In the days afterwards, Charles Johnson said, “This incident is a pretty severe test of character; not everyone will pass it.”

That test goes on today in more muted tones, but it was loud and clear two years ago, and the reactions around the world were telling. We saw who was saddened by our loss. And we saw who cheered it.

I saw, and I remember it all. I’ll never forget anything from that day, as long as I live.