9/10/02: The Day Before the Year After
It's the day before the year after and we're all holding our breaths, waiting, like we're aware of the cycle of the year, like we're afraid that rewalking the day we call septembereleventh again tomorrow is going to hurt as much as it did the first time. "September Eleventh" is not a date anymore, it's a name for a time and a place and a feeling that is too big to give any other name.
I know where I was a year ago today: I was happy that I had a date for the twelfth. Also, I was nervous that my first SAT class was starting tomorrow. I was planning on going in to Manhattan to a store called Tent and Trails to buy a special mat you put under your sleeping bag. If I hadn't overslept, I would have gone there in the morning, and I would have been there when it happened. Tent and Trails was so close to the Trade Center that you couldn't see it from there.
I know that doesn't make sense, but the thing about the World Trade Center is, it was too big to see close up. You had to take a lot of steps back before it could fit in your eyes. Even then, you couldn't fit it all. The mere attempt would make you dizzy. It's like now. Knowing what happened doesn't quite fit into your head. It's taken a year to get this far, far enough away where I see what happened.
So tomorrow makes a year, and we're all holding our breath. We're afraid to see tomorrow, afraid of our own grief. We're afraid like tonight is September 10th of 2001, and it's going to happen all over again in front of our eyes and we won't be able to stop it. Only this time it won't be a surprise.
Or maybe what we're afraid of is the knowledge that there are other dates out there that have not become names yet but might. Not neccesarily from a terrorism attack -- it's just the knowledge that things happen and some of them are horrible. You try not to think that way, but times like this remind you that's not so.
I think I should just turn my television off for a while. I've seen enough with my eyes.