July 4, 2010

• Some Things Never Change

  A few moments left of the Fourth of July.  I am not a tremendously big fan of fireworks.  I've seen a few great displays which will be tough to beat.  Don't get me wrong...  I may not be overtly patriotic, but I am grateful for my country.  I'm a citizen by birth, and this is my home.  I don't consider having a barbeque and watching fireworks an act of patriotism, anyway.  Not that anyone really does, huh.  

  I was watching this cheesy movie the other day with my sister, and one of the characters mentioned something about the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers.  This movie was made in the late 1990's.  There's no way they could've foreseen what would've happened less than a decade from then.  But this got me thinking.  For some of my students, 9/11 happened when they were very young.  Even for my high school students, some were only 5.  For me, it was yesterday.  

  I remember that day clearly...  coming home from my evening/morning shift at work (long story) and turning on the tv (which is not usual practice) and watching in horror as the two towers that was a part of my childhood memory came down one after another.  I remember thinking, "things will never be the same."  This concept was echoed in the many quotes of other fellow New Yorkers that day, as they walked the bridge, many like zombies, in shock and waiting to wake up from some terrible nightmare.  Dozens of people interviewed on the street said the same thing: "Things will never be the same."

  I wonder now what we meant.

  I wonder if we expected the world to stop.

  Technology sure didn't.  But we didn't mean that the iPad would never come to be, or that we would forever be living in a non-Android phone world.  It wasn't that we didn't anticipate not having to deal with regular modems and "dialing in" to hear the AOL-dominated world say, "you've got mail!"  

  And although for months after the incident, almost everyone in NY (and all over the country, I suppose, but I can't vouch for it) had flags on their car antennae, we didn't mean that we would do that forever.  Maybe we thought we would.  But they're gone, for the most part.   

  I guess we were just grieving.  And when you grieve, you want everything to stop and grieve with you.  

  Color-codes in airports are pretty standard now, along with long lines and heavy scans.  Maybe we expected this.  But it's normal now.  

  The "War on Terror" is still in effect.  Troops are still being deployed and being killed.  I wonder about the lives of those soldiers.  Truly, the lives of them and the lives of their family members will never be the same.  Is this what we meant?  Perhaps...  

  I read this news story about a man who slit his step daughter's throat with a kitchen knife. She was five.  He wanted to punish her.  Her mother, who is a nurse, unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate her.  The link includes a transcript of the mother's interchange with the emergency operator.  It's not for the squeamish.  The mother's life will never be the same.  This is not what we meant on that day, when we said, "things will never be the same."

  I don't think we meant technology, or lines in airports, or people dying.  I think we meant unity.  I think we wanted the world to rally around us, embrace us, and for once, for everyone to act as one.  To grieve as one.  To be comforting each other, to protect each other, and to experience life together.  I think we wanted less of our pain, and more of this "moving together-ness" that is so hard to describe.  And yet we still have those news stories.  We still have the burglaries.  We still have the muggings, the rapings, the murders.  We still have the hit-and-runs and the personal stories of pain that can never be shared by an entire city all at the same time.  Perhaps that was the special thing about that day.  We felt it all at once.  Together.  And we think we will never be the same.

  But some things never change.  

  Forgetfulness is a welcome anesthetic.  Time erodes many things, including pain and painful memories.  This is a welcome constant.

  We are still obsessed with self, efficiency, and pleasure.  We are still laden with excuses.  We still desperately protect self, and the costumes we hide behind are the same ones that have not been weathered by centuries worth of use.  Hate is the same.  Bigotry, lying, judging, backbiting, gossiping, finger-pointing, robbery of the esteem of others...  the same.  

  I'm tired of the scenery.  

  I'm happy to say, however, that this fourth of July, I can say that I've seen love.  It's out there.  I mean, love in bucketfuls.  Love that just knocks you over, not because it's directed at you, but because it spills over and smacks you in the face.  Love that's not just limited to family members and close friends, but to people who need it, people who deserve it, and most importantly, people who don't deserve it.  Love that is stronger than the evil that pervades the atmosphere all around it.  

  Some things never change.  But I want change that is not just political, but radical.  Societal.  Global.  I want change that forgetfulness doesn't wash away, that the slow creep back to self-reliance and self-centeredness won't erase.  I want change that is eye-opening, eye-popping, and permanent.  I want change that will leave us never the same ever again.  

  This week, reach out and love someone you don't know.  Yeah?  It doesn't mean just hugging them.  These things take some thinking, 'na mean?  Shoot, love someone you DO know.  Sometimes that's more difficult.  And let us never be the same.  I don't know if this was coherent.  Forgive me. 

   

  • 11:50 pm
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