Little things

There's a big part of me that wants to sit here and recount our past weekend which, in a nutshell, was a testament to the validity of Murphy's Law. To sum up: Waiting + lines + no Barney + toddler + more waiting = tantrum hurricane. I'd like to talk about that - mainly because that's my life. Squarely kiddocentric. Recent events, however, have given me pause to lament my latest standoff with my hostile tot. In part because, regardless of how relevant my anecdotes are to me, today it all feels a tiny bit misplaced. Bin Laden's death has an overarching implication and significance - more so than any other death I've ever really given deference to in my lifetime - and it's in instances like these that I have to stand and allow the importance of it all to settle. The dirt and debris from all of this are still heavy in the air. It's been nearly ten years since September 2001. I was still, in large part, just a kid then. The kid that I was finds it easy to exhume the happenings of that particular day in fine details - down to the brush stroke. The mother in me wants to believe that this death will in some way prevent the incidence of future deaths - and to whitewash any possiblity of a similar memory from the mind of my child.

All that time ago I was a college sophomore living in New York (*translation* self-important, impervious and painfully naive).  That morning I learned of death through the smell of it in the scent of fire, of sulfur, of burning tires, of metal of ash and cinder over the Manhattan sky.  My early morning Shakespeare class spilled out and onto South Lawn, a small number of bodies who all at once appeared frozen and staring into their cell phones. Staring, but saying nothing. It wasn't until several minutes later that I saw the post-it note affixed to the door of my American history class: ‘Planes hit WTC. Towers down. Class Cancelled’.  It made no sense to me until I saw the footage - repeated over, repeated endlessly in the blinking and rampant flashing of every tv and computer screen leaked from every apartment. The island closed down and into itself.  The bridges and tunnels were sealed and secured.  Phone lines spewed only busy signals. The towers went down, one by one, into rubble and cloud and in the midst of alarms and wailing, somehow everything was silence.  Silence with bursts of noise and disorder as though someone was spinning a loud radio down the dial, skipping past station and static alike.

I think back on it now like somewhat of a dream. I remember being there - I remember the events of the day, the crying, the wailing of alarms and the unreal blending of commotion and silence. It took hours to get in touch with my parents. I was somewhere into my sixth or seventh hour of event playback when my Mother told me: "You are a part of history now. You are living it. This is living history." Up until that moment it had been a meal of information too large and too rich and to repugnant to ingest. Maybe it still is, even now. But it took her saying that to shake me awake - to realize the ramifications of what was happening. No one was safe anymore, if we had ever been. I unceremoniously hung up my super hero cape and submitted to no longer being invincible. In the days and months following we all exchanged stories. We were all touched by what had happened - we all lost people. I know a survivor who watched from the second tower as bodies began to jump from the first after having been told via loud speaker to remain at their desks - and not to panic.

I don't know what the death of Bin Laden will ultimately mean to the future of the United States or to al Qaeda. I don't know if in recent years he was merely a figure head or at worst a catalyst. Today I'd like to appreciate the American victory and to thank all of the soldiers and the families of the fallen - for sacrificing for families like mine (with children that know nothing of war) that are made all the more secure by their courage, dignity and perseverence. It's because of you that I can wax on about these things that seem by comparison to be quite little - little hands, little feet and little nights with little sleep.