Remembering 9/11/01: Diary Entry

Music ties closely with events for me. I remember on the morning of September 11, 2001 hearing U2's "Beautiful Day" on the radio and thinking how true it felt. The sun shined and the air felt lightly cool on the way to my temp job where I answered phones.

What's great about keeping a journal is the ability to reflect on exactly what was written at that time. This is my entry a few days after the attacks:

So, I didn't write about it, but last week the World Trade Center was blown up. Destroyed. Planes crashed and the whole tower fell and the 2nd one fell. I was at work at my temp job. All I did was answer phones. I was online on [an online message forum I belonged to] and I heard about it in the office as it happened. I wrote online & so did Healther, we wrote back and forth as we found out what happened, and on CNN.com.

It was a horrible day. All we did at home was watch the towers burn and people run in the streets screaming.

I went to Chicago that next Saturday anyway (for a Jimmy Eat World concert -their new album  Bleed American released that month as an unfortunate coincidence) but it was scary to travel to a big city and not know what's going to happen.

I rarely ever see clips of the towers burning and the people in the streets anymore. It's amazing what was shown on TV as it was happening, but I feel like we've almost been sheltered from those images since then. I'm not sure I want to revisit any of it for the anniversary. Once is really enough to see a person jump from a burning building.

I wish I had written it in the journal, but at one point mid-day, one of the news channels showed a scrolling message across the screen that 50,000 were suspected dead. That figure is ridiculously high to the actual casualties, which was around 2,900. It's still too many, but I always thought it could have been worse if not for the first responders who saved so many lives. I never saw the estimation again but I remember feeling terrified to think that many people had died.

Rolling Stone Magazine October 2001

Alicia Keys is another musician I associate with the aftermath of the attacks. She performed in the celebrity telethon that aired on all the major networks a few days after to raise money for the victims. I loved her image on the cover of the following month's Rolling Stone. I kept the issue for a long time, as a reminder of sorts that everyone had to adjust to the idea of large scale terrorism in our own country. Even artists, celebrities, our whole culture.

I visited NYC for the first time the following year with my best friend Katie who had moved to Connecticut after college. Even a year later there were memorial photos and artwork hung up on the fence surrounding the gaping hole that was the towers. As busy and loud as the city can get, anywhere along the fence felt somber, like a memorial. I suppose it was.

Will you watch any of the coverage commemorating the victims? Are there any blogs or articles reflecting on the attacks that particularly moved you?

Book Review: And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky

Title: And Then Things Fall Apart
Author: Arlaina Tibensky
Genre: YA Contemporary
Published: 2011

LOVE. I love this book. I devoured it in a few sittings, completely immersing myself in the summer of Keek, (short for Karina) with her analyzations of family and  boyfriend issues and obsession over The Bell Jar, all while sweating through chicken pox-induced fevers.



Considering the story takes place in one location and is almost entirely Keek's reflections, the pacing is quick and her musings are funny and introspective. Keek spends a few miserable weeks as a shut-in recovering from chicken pox, an affliction that apparently increases in severity with age, and Keek is 15. Her parents are newly separated; her dad's a wreck trying to keep the family restaurant functioning, while her mother takes off to California to help Keek's aunt with a newborn in the NICU. Keek feels abandoned by her boyfriend, who she recently had a fight with, and she's drifted apart from her best friend, leaving her scratching by her lonesome at Gran's house. She's disconnected from the internet, cable TV and has no cell phone reception. What she has is a vintage typewriter from Gran and a copy of her favorite book, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

While a lot of heavy themes run through the book, the tone is conversational it feels more like an array of spastic thoughts. She types up these thoughts to take her mind off everything she can't control. The parallels made to Esther Greenwood of The Bell Jar are clever and fitting and fuse well with the story. Keek becomes obsessed with Esther, comparing her life to the character and even testing out a few recipes Esther ate (gross ones like a jelly-filled avocado and raw hamburger on a cracker). Gran proves to be a source of comfort, helping Keek deal with her sickness and her parent's break-up.

I related to the premise: I read The Bell Jar at 15, was an only child, experimented writing stories on an old typewriter, wrote bad poetry, had family issues, and even once had some sort of rash episode that left me insanely itchy and blotchy for 24 painful hours. I would imagine even if none of these apply to you, this is an enjoyable glimpse into the life of a teen girl trying to make sense of an awful world with a dose of humor. It's my favorite book of the summer.