{"id":565,"date":"2004-09-09T21:47:37","date_gmt":"2004-09-10T05:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/09\/09\/the-day-after-tomorrow\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:20:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:20:39","slug":"the-day-after-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/09\/09\/the-day-after-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Day After Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

On my way home from the vigil I listened to public radio. They played excerpts from the 9\/11 Commission hearings. One recording I listened to was Betty Ong’s Call from 9\/11 Flight 11″ href=”http:\/\/www.thememoryhole.org\/911\/911-ong-tape.htm”>Betty Ong’s Call from 9\/11 Flight 11<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, I try to keep the focus on this blog mostly positive, or at least try to avoid cynicism. I also maintain a fairly apolitical position here (though it’s probably clear that I tilt left). So you will find no rant about what failures of commission or omisson occurred in our government. <\/p>\n

However, I will share my reaction to hearing this recording. After three years<\/em>, I still cannot see footage of the Twin Towers without crying. Listening to Ms. Ong calmly attempting to communicate the hijacking to a clearly clueless and disorganized emergency call center, knowing that not long after her plane crashed into Tower One, made me shiver with gooseflesh. <\/p>\n

We must not forget. I don’t advocate living in a sustained state of grief and shock, but I do believe that with time passing, we ease into complacency. All around us, all the time, are dire warnings of possible terrorist attacks, along with monotonous war rhetoric. We live in a state of edginess and, at the same time, try to go on with life. Therein lies the risk of forgetting exactly how devastating this event was. <\/p>\n

The war rhetoric and paranoia (however justified) are not what I wish to focus on; this is not what the 9\/11 anniversary is for. We can get this the other 364 days of the year. No, I want to remember what I experienced that day. I want to set aside some time, however short, to open up my heart and remember.<\/p>\n

It was a busy day at my job. I caught word on NPR as I drove into work that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I my mind, I thought perhaps a small one, a traffic plane or something. Upon arriving to work, our team staffed which clients needed to be seen (I worked at a mental health agency). Someone popped in an said the plane was a jet. I had an emergency call from a client’s parent to deal with, and when I finished, the second plane had hit. Somewhere in there came word about the plane at the Pentagon, and then the one in Pennsylvania. You know how, when you’ve been sitting awhile and you rise too quickly all the blood rushes downward and your vision goes white around the edges? That’s how I felt. There was a television in the lounge, and I went to see what happened. I arrived shortly before the footage showed, in real time, the collapse of the first Tower. Unbelieveable. I’d been in those towers more than once. My brain could not comprehend what my eyes saw. Awhile later, as I watched, the second Tower collapsed. I sat there the whole time, clenching my teeth so as not to sob out loud, with tears cascading down my face. I saw people falling from the buildings. I saw the buildings pancake, knowing there were people within them. <\/p>\n

I had to tear myself away to make some home visits, and later in the day to help a client move to his new apartment. I moved robotically throughout the day, crying on and off. My thinking was muddled. I finished as early as possible and went home. I felt horror, disbelief, agony, and confusion. I went to work the next day but could think clearly, was no use to anyone. So the day after I took a sick day to grieve. I felt isolated, because my co-workers did not seem affected; no one I knew was taking it so hard. My words here don’t do justice to the turmoil I experienced.<\/p>\n

The first and second anniversaries I noticed myself forgetting things, being distracted, feeling sad, crying. I avoided the media hype. Now it’s year three — it seems sudden, but it really isn’t. I don’t want to blithely go on with my life on September 11. It is a day to remember, to be quiet and think of all the souls affected by the attacks — which is, in effect, everyone. The impact of that day goes beyond just 9\/11, for me; there is the ripple effect, which we continue to feel. The attacks were followed by our military bombing Afghanistan, and there were civilians hurt and killed (not to mention the civilians who lived under the torment of the Taliban). Following this was our invasion of Iraq, which I favored at the beginning — not without hesitation, but I believed the reports of WMD and thought it might be prudent. But it’s turned into a quagmire. It’s become clear this was more of a personal vendetta (Bush’s) that drove the action, since no evidence of WMD was ever found.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, I’m veering towards a polemic, so I’ll stop now. On Saturday, just take some time. Avoid the media, but take a moment to think about where you were that day, how you felt. Say a prayer, meditate, light candles, cry. Just remember. Please remember.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On my way home from the vigil I listened to public radio. They played excerpts from the 9\/11 Commission hearings. One recording I listened to was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","category-social-science"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12841,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/12841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}