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I'm Not Ready for a Parade
11/9/06 15:31My birthday is December 7. According to Franklin Roosevelt, this is a date that will live in infamy, but in fact, time has gentled and diffused the grief and outrage of Pearl Harbor. When I was a kid, everyone knew that my birthday was Pearl Harbor Day; now people have to be reminded. So, probably, it will be with September 11th. Some day.
I have no direct connection to what happened five years ago--other than the fact that I was living in Manhattan, and that I am a lifelong and passionate New Yorker. So I've always felt a little squeamish about saying that the attack on the World Trade Centers had any effect on me; I have some anecdotes about that day (as I do about the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the days John Kennedy and Martin Luther KIng were assassinated, and the day Richard Nixon resigned) but I did not directly suffer. In the same way, I resist and resent the slew of movies and documentaries about 9/11 that have been swarming at us the last few weeks.
Years ago when we were still living in New York, our downstairs neighbor's dog died. Sarcasm Girl was then about four, and felt that Murphy's owner couldn't possibly be as upset about Murphy's death as she was--for which reason we didn't go to the "wake" that Lainie held for Murphy. The last thing Lainie needed was my four year old trying to usurp her grief. And that's what so many of these documentaries and movies feel like to me--using 9/11 as a money-maker, or even worse, a way to say "Hey, we're still grieving too." I won't even get into the political implications of something like "The Path to 9/11." I won't be watching it. I haven't seen any of the documentaries or films, and I probably won't for a long time, if ever. I'm not ready for a parade, or a movie, or even a memorial service.
I intend to feed my kids and check homework and pick up my aunt at the BART station and walk the dog and, in so far as possible, practice peace and goodwill. That will have to be my parade.
I have no direct connection to what happened five years ago--other than the fact that I was living in Manhattan, and that I am a lifelong and passionate New Yorker. So I've always felt a little squeamish about saying that the attack on the World Trade Centers had any effect on me; I have some anecdotes about that day (as I do about the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the days John Kennedy and Martin Luther KIng were assassinated, and the day Richard Nixon resigned) but I did not directly suffer. In the same way, I resist and resent the slew of movies and documentaries about 9/11 that have been swarming at us the last few weeks.
Years ago when we were still living in New York, our downstairs neighbor's dog died. Sarcasm Girl was then about four, and felt that Murphy's owner couldn't possibly be as upset about Murphy's death as she was--for which reason we didn't go to the "wake" that Lainie held for Murphy. The last thing Lainie needed was my four year old trying to usurp her grief. And that's what so many of these documentaries and movies feel like to me--using 9/11 as a money-maker, or even worse, a way to say "Hey, we're still grieving too." I won't even get into the political implications of something like "The Path to 9/11." I won't be watching it. I haven't seen any of the documentaries or films, and I probably won't for a long time, if ever. I'm not ready for a parade, or a movie, or even a memorial service.
I intend to feed my kids and check homework and pick up my aunt at the BART station and walk the dog and, in so far as possible, practice peace and goodwill. That will have to be my parade.