September 11 in Washington DC

On September 11, 2001, I lived in Washington, DC, in the Woodner apartment building up sixteenth street; and on that day, I was beginning a new job a few blocks south of Dupont Circle.  I took the S2 bus down to N Street and got off, and as I walked the rest of the way to the office I remember thinking how beautifully blue the sky was, and how wonderful it was to be alive and in a city I loved on such a perfect September day.

I arrived at work and introduced myself; I put my things away, and my new boss offered to show me around the office.  But we didn't get very far - there was a television in the open lobby just past the reception desk, and as we headed that way, there were two or three people crowded around staring at it.  We looked blankly at the screen, which showed smoke coming from one of the twin towers.  "A plane hit the world trade center," someone told us.

We watched for a few minutes - long enough to see the second plane hit - and then I went back to my computer and logged on to a mud I play from time to time.  Of course nobody was killing mobs and collecting coin and gear; everyone was talking about what was happening.

This gave me a unique perspective on things.  People were watching different channels, listening to different radio stations, looking at different websites.  And they were shouting out headline updates as they heard them on the public channel of this mud.  My screen scrolled with text.  More planes were hijacked.  How many? Twelve? Fourteen? The Pentagon was hit.  The State Department was bombed.  There was a fire on the mall.  Another plane was heading up the Potomac.

That "news" came from one of the administrators of the game, a friend of mine.  I saw it and I was afraid.  I was less than a mile from the White House, and that was the next obvious target.  It's really an understatement to say I was afraid: I thought I was going to die.  Later in the day, that embarrassed me a great deal - it's one thing to react with fear to being in immediate danger, but it's quite another thing to realize after the fact that you weren't really in danger at all.  What was the fear for? For nothing.  People died, but I wasn't one of them, and the fact that I'd been afraid for my life seemed childish and melodramatic.  Oh, but I was angry, so angry at the news networks who spread rumor upon rumor and frightened us witless, we who were depending on them to tell us what was happening.

I called my mother.  I don't think I'd ever heard her voice sound so shaky.  I don't think I'd ever heard her so afraid.  She was so relieved to hear from me.  I asked her to call my dad and tell him that I was okay.  She made me promise I'd stay safe, and I made a promise I didn't know if I'd be able to keep.

My boss told me that I could go home, if I wanted to.  I asked if I could stay, though - at home, I had no TV, no radio, and only dialup internet; I suspected I'd have a great deal of trouble finding out what was going on.  I stayed and watched and listened to the news.  And as my online acquaintances started to worry and wonder about their friends in DC, I offered to make some of those "are you okay?" phone calls for them - because nobody outside the city could call in, but our phones were working just fine.  And so I called up a few total strangers, to ask them if they were safe, and relay that news to their friends.  Everyone I called was safe at home.

After an hour or two, it occurred to me that I should get cash, and maybe a radio.  So I walked out of the office and across the street to the bank.  Cars were everywhere as people fled the city.  People were walking everywhere.  Nobody was paying attention to traffic signals, and the streets were jammed.  Everyone was frustrated.  A steady stream of people was jaywalking across the street, and a frustrated cabdriver with dark skin and a turban saw an opening and gunned his motor.  He braked quickly when he saw pedestrians were crossing against the light in front of him still, but the people screamed and dove out of the way.  He was the enemy; he was out to get them, and they ran.

I got my cash alright but none of the stores had radios left, and so I went back to the office, collected my things, and after being urged several more times to go home - I left.  More time had passed and by now, even though it was midday, most everyone was gone from the city.  The streets were eerily empty, both of cars and people.  The Metro had been kept running the whole time, but the train I was on was almost empty.  I rode out to Vienna, to my best friend's house.  And there we sat and watched the planes hit the towers over and over and over and over again, and watched her month-old daughter sleep.

"You know what's awful about this?" my friend said to me.  "I mean besides the obvious - it sounds so horrible to say - but after this, Bush is probably going to be re-elected in a landslide." I agreed; I'd had the same worry and been afraid to voice it myself.

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And now it's three years later.  A lot has happened to me since then.

The new job didn't last - and I couldn't find steady work for months.  I had to borrow from my parents to pay rent.  I got sick, with no health insurance, and had to charge $600 worth of care and drugs to my credit card.  My mother's health insurance wasn't sufficient to buy her competent care: she died of lung cancer, undiagnosed, after being treated all winter for recurring "sinus infections" and a suspected heart attack.  I went back to school.  Then I ran out of money and left school and the city I loved to move back home with my dad.

And now it's come `round again, a third year - and I'm hip-deep in politics.  Because my friend's prediction can't come true, it just can't.  I've suffered under the Bush regime, but I'm not the only one who has suffered, and many more have suffered a great deal more than I have.  We can't just ask ourselves "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" because that isn't enough.  We've got to go back to caring about each other, the way we did for a couple of weeks in 2001 and said even then, wouldn't it be nice if people behaved this way all the time? We've got to become a nation that cares for all its people - not just the richest or the whitest or the loudest ones.  We've got to become a nation that cares about its government and what its government is doing. And to do that, we've got to become a people who participates in government and believes in it.  We've got to keep fighting and talking and writing and voting, and never give up, never start thinking that we can't make a difference - because if we do that, if we recuse ourselves from participating in our government, then we leave the neocons and the terrorists to duke it out among themselves.  And who knows who'll win? Will it really matter?

So, let's let September 11 be the day we vow never to give up the quest to make our nation into something we can be proud of again.

If I am not for myself, who's for me? If I'm for myself alone, what am I? If not now, when? If not us, who?