there is no other world

I keep my old blog posts in an archive, in which I found this post from September 11, 2011. I wanted to remember the sadness I felt on that day, in part because I am certain that the sadness, fear, and rage I feel today is much worse. The post that I would write today would not be like this post. Then, I believed that the events of 9/11 “confirmed all the dread I had never known about my world.” Now, I have a better sense of how much worse things actually are and can get. I mourn all of it.

Through the Reagan years, I lived in terror of nuclear annihilation. There were nights I lay awake, wondering when the bombs would begin to fall. Through most of those years, I was far too young to understand anything about international relations; all that I knew was that the Soviets had big bombs and so did we. Later came perestroika, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the election of President Clinton. (Though did I really trust him on foreign policy any more than I did Reagan? Looking back, I'm not so sure.) I also grew older. But though my terror subsided, it lingered. Sometimes I wondered if it were really all that wise to live in New York City, much as I love it here. If the bombs ever fell, they would certainly fall here. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I had a dream of nuclear war. In the dream, I was packing sweaters for my escape. Would I even be able to get somewhere beyond the bombs? After I woke, and as I prepared to go to work, I kept asking myself, Why don't I feel safe anymore? Why don't I feel safe? Why don't I feel safe? And so, two hours later, when I stood in Times Square (the very place I had been certain would be Ground Zero, should Y2K mayhem have broken out the year before) and read the news on a ticker—one tower fallen, the other on fire, the Pentagon on fire, the White House evacuated—it confirmed all the dread I had ever known about my world. Awake! It is so.

And yet: through that eerie, spring-like autumn, I stayed. I continued to work in lower Manhattan (for six years), moved to Brooklyn, fell in love, got married, had a child. I'm still here, and I have no thought of leaving. Where is there to go?

There were too many dead on that day; there have been too many dead since. Blessings on us all.