It always bothered me that our president told us to go shopping after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. I felt as patriotic as perhaps ever I did on that day and in its immediate aftermath, and yet I couldn’t rally behind a call like that one.
In the years since, I’ve felt my patriotism give way a little, to be honest. I’m not always proud of my country, and that doesn’t necessarily change when the guy I vote for wins. My country as it exists today often leaves me with an ambivalence that’s usually easier to ignore than resolve.
So over a decade after September 11, I didn’t do anything to—what, celebrate? That’s not right. Memorialize? No, remember. I didn’t do anything to call back that day. That day when the secretary in my office was playing the radio (not normal) because she’d heard that a plane (I envisioned a Cessna) had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. I asked her to turn it off so we could all get work done, but she sensed that something bigger was happening.
I didn’t do anything to invoke the original 9/11 until a few minutes ago when I stumbled across this beautiful piece (I recommend installing Readability first so you can strip out the nasty images on the side, I’m afraid). I encourage you to read it.
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