caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 911 Just a quick update, for those of you who were kind enough to sign my guestbook or send me emails sympathizing with the accident last week. Thanks to all of you for your care � it does make me realize, again, how many friends I have around here. The boys are doing well. YMB's seatbelt rash is nearly gone, and he's been sleeping fine for the last several days; starting to put it behind him, I think. Blue's still sore � he wrenched something in his shoulder, I think � but other than that, he's doing well also. Which is a good thing, because he has an all-day orientation for school on Saturday, and then class starts on Tuesday. I'm doing better as well, although I still have something funky going on with these reddish lumps on my legs. It still hurts to walk. Yesterday we stopped by to see the Esses, SmartKid, and Buttercup, and EssMale said he's had something similar. They didn't call it an auto-immune reaction, though I forget what they did call it � but they sent him to an allergist, who put him on histamine blockers, and that made it go away. Good to know, since I've been on the 2nd antibiotic since Thursday and there hasn't been any improvement. I know practically everyone else is doing this, too, but I can't help reflecting on this time last year, because I'm not going to tomorrow. A year ago today, I was nattering on about grocery shopping and trying to have sex in the bathtub. The next day, and the next and the next after that, on and on, were taken up with trying to come to some sort of peace with what happened on the 11th, so that we could go back to normal without feeling guilt that we weren't personally affected by the tragedy � that no one in our family died, or was hurt, or, as far as we know, even knew anyone who was. I've been selfishly trying not to think about those days a year ago, when no one knew what was happening, when the sound of a plane over ahead made everyone stop what they were doing and look up. When we thought things would never be the same. We as a nation have done a pretty good job of forgetting, I think, in just that year, and aside from the plethoras of American flags and jingoistic speeches and cheesy trading-on-tragedy remembrance plates and crap, things are basically the same for the average American. In the past weeks more people have talked about the outcome of "American Idol" than what the outcome will be of having troops in Iraq. I don't pretend to know if that is right or wrong. I know it's important for our children to feel safe, at the same time it's important to remember that we are no less vulnerable than the rest of the world. So many people around the world live everyday like the weeks following September 11th were for us, and we just drift back into taking things for granted, and get annoyed when our planes are delayed, or it takes us a little longer to get through security at the airport. I wasn't going to write about it, actually. I've become really tired and frustrated with all the coverage, so much overkill, the same images over and over and the same talking heads mouthing the same platitudes we heard last year. But it not something one can ignore, it's everywhere. In stores, in the newspapers, bad songs on the radio, in magazines and on tv and in stickers on the back of cars. "America remembers." It seems to me, though, that the harder we insist that we much remember, the more we try to recapture the horrific oneness that brought us together as a country and a world last year, the closer we come to forgetting the importance of the event, the consequences. The families whose loved ones we claim as national heroes, they were someone's dad, sister, wife, child first and foremost, before they were heroes, or victims, or however one prefers to think of them. What right do we have to them? This is what Mitch Albom, one of my favorite newspaper writers, wrote 360 days ago. "We have been lucky in America. We have lived pleasantly ignorant of the terror that threatens other nations every day. No more. That smoke was our innocence. That smoke was our peace of mind. It is disappearing now in the bloody skies above New York and Washington and Pennsylvania." The smoke, though, blew away, and we are left with idiot country singers singing about how kicking ass is the American way, Calvin peeing on Osama stickers, lots of footage of George W. looking befuddled, and the vague notion that perhaps we'll attack Iraq. Why? Oh, who knows. It'll get everyone's mind of the recession and look like we're doing something. Why not? 11:52 a.m. - September 10, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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