Ten years ago I started teaching at a new school, one I wasn’t very comfortable in. It was my first public school job, my first in a large school, with a large faculty. On September 11, 2001, I was teaching first period American Lit when we were told to stay put in our classrooms. Someone came in and told us to turn on the tv, which revealed the horror of the day.
One of the World Trade Center towers was on fire, having been hit by a plane about 15 minutes earlier. As I recall, we were all watching when the second plane hit, and the thought that this was an attack became more clear. Classes changed just as news of the Pentagon, some twenty minutes away, came on. I cried as I watched the first tower crumble, with no one around but two other teachers I had essentially just met.
I remember so many details of the day—
I remember crying about the deaths of people I’d never met, thinking that that is the connection others call God.
I remember crossing paths with one of my new students in an empty hallway, and stopping to hug him for a second.
I remember thinking that class should just go on, and that that would be a victory.
I remember asking my students to write about whatever they wanted on a day that writing about whatever we wanted took on new meaning and importance.
I remember wanting to hold my children more than anything.
I remember learning about the heroism on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and, remarking that those guys were me, wondering if I would have had that courage.
I remember helping a woman the next day who had driven her car over the parking stop log, and saying, “They can bomb us, but they can’t keep us from being nice to each other.”
I remember one of the hardest running workouts I’ve ever done, on a beautiful sunny September 12.
I remember feeling more unified as a nation than I had ever felt in my lifetime.
I remember putting a flag on my car, and waving to others who did the same.
It’s that feeling of unity that I want to carry with me. We were all in those towers, in those planes, on those streets, in that Oval Office. A flag that had been the sign of provincial and ugly jingoistic nationalism for me became a symbol of a people, and a way to express our common humanity.
Having been born in the early 60s, my life has taken me through civil rights battles, Viet Nam War protests, Watergate, Reagan’s nuclear madness, a Gulf War, and more tangible divisive political, cultural and economic arguments. This day, though, and for some time afterward, we were focused on one common enemy.
Since that time, though, we’ve seen the eroding of any unified feeling. It happened slowly at first, when W decided to invade Iraq, for example. But it has now degraded to childish obstinacy and intolerance. We can’t see anyone else’s point of view; we can’t compromise for fear of seeming, well, like we’re working together for a cause. We refuse to see that despite our differences in “how,” the “why” of making our country better should bring us together.
So today, what I want to remember is feeling like a part of a nation for the first and only time in my life. I’ll remember that it’s possible, and hope that it doesn’t take another attack to make it happen.
