thoughts on 9/11

As I sat on the bed this morning, my wet hair dripping onto my shirt, I became a bit transfixed on the 9/11 coverage. Everyone has a story; everyone will always remember where they were and what they were doing when they found out that the United States was being attacked. When I was a little girl, my grandmother told me she'd always remember exactly where she was and what she was doing when she found out President Kennedy had been shot. It never ceases to amaze me, how the brain works; how certain moments can be called up in a split second and vividly relived. As an adult, I possess many of these moments myself. The day my grandfather died, the day my serious boyfriend left me. I, too, recall 9/11/01, but not so vividly as other people and certainly not so clearly as I recall some other moments in my life. At the time, I didn't know many people living in New York; I was a sophomore in college in Indiana. I remember rolling out of my top bunk at Alpha Phi, stumbling toward the shower, but being stopped by a sobbing Andrea in the hallway. Nobody held class that day. We all just sat in the classrooms of the music building and watched the news, and people made phone calls and comforted each other. I remember one girl in my choir whose mother was killed; I didn't know her well, but I can still remember our director telling us that the girl had gone home, that they still didn't know if her mother was alive or not.
I guess I was surprised at my reaction to the coverage this morning. I tuned in just in time for the moment of silence, and I said a few prayers. I was moved by the tributes and the spouses reading the names of the victims. Although I've been troubled by the world's desire to turn the terrorist attacks into a profit just five short years later (re: Hollywood blockbusters, books, etc), the remembrances today were genuine, and I felt as though people were truly drawn together. No matter where we were, our individual stories of that day are not self-important or insignificant, they bring us together in a way that only a shared human experience can. And that shared human experience will hopefully ensure that nothing like this will ever happen again.