pjthompson (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pjthompson) wrote2004-09-11 04:59 pm
pjthompson) wrote2004-09-11 04:59 pm
The Beauty of Moonlight
"To correct a natural indifference I was placed halfway between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn't everything."
—Albert Camus, De L'Envers et l'endroit
I have no personal trauma from September 11—it didn't happen directly to me. I just have West Coast remembrances and watching it all on TV, frantically calling back east to check on friends in NYC and DC, as many others did.
It took me two days to find out about one friend who worked at the Pentagon. He was at ground zero, and had the narrowest of narrow escapes. His entire floor was wiped out by the plane and fireball except for that one tiny corner where he and his colleagues worked. The ceiling came down on them, but there was a zone of survival and they were able to crawl out of a broken window in time to save themselves. Everyone else around them died, but he escaped with nothing more serious than bruises and cuts.
Again, I experienced this all at a remove. I saw him two weeks later and he was like a man going through the motions, it seemed to me—keeping it all together, but not taking in the world around him much. Or not letting it in. When asked, he said as much, that he was still rather numb. The reaction came later. And a year and a month later, his son was born. When I got the pictures, I wept, thinking that a few feet made the difference between that child being born and never existing; thinking of all the other children who were left orphaned or never got born.
Camus is right: history isn't everything. It's only the individual stories that matter—and the bulk of them never get told in a public way. For the most part it's only the guys who run the show, the swinging dicks, who make it into the history books.
"In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing."
—Lucille Clifton
The other thing I've been thinking a lot about on this anniversary is the threefold law: whatever we do for good or evil will come back to us threefold. I think this applies to nations and groups as well as individuals. There are evildoers I would be thrilled to see punished, but I shudder to think what price my nation may be asked to pay for the injustices we have committed in the name of retribution; of justifying a war built on pretext and lies. The United States is not the only victim here, and acting out of vengeance rather than from justice always begets more violence and injustice.
The minute this country stopped being an example of freedom and justice in the world, we lost the so-called war on terrorism. The swinging dicks hijacked my country. I have no doubt others will disagreement strongly with this, probably even my friend who survived the Pentagon crash.
And if it had been my child, my husband, my beloved who had been killed on 9/11 would I feel differently? I can't possibly say. Maybe. Perhaps the need to hit somebody—anybody—would trump the belief systems of a lifetime. I can't honestly say. I don't think anyone can honestly say what they would do in that situation. We like to think we know how we would behave in every situation, but in my experience, experience often trumps beliefs—and most of us really don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. Grief can twist you in ways you can't even anticipate.
Questions are the best friends we have in times of crisis, but impulse usually becomes our new best chum. And for a month after 9/11 I wanted to hit someone and hit them hard. But I wanted to hit the right someone, not some guy who was easy to hate and made a convenient target to distract us; some guy that some swinging dick wanted to hit to settle old scores. Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, the ones who indisputably did this to us, are still out there and issuing attack decrees.
"If someone were to weigh the beauty of moonlight against the depth of human cruelty, which would win?"
—Alice Hoffman, The River King
The moonlight, I think. The beauty of moonlight is always there, even in the cruelest places, but often we lack the eyes to see it. Nature always has the last word, so unless nature's design includes the moon falling out of the sky, moonlight will be there even after humans have destroyed themselves with cruelty. And who knows what other species will evolve on the planet to appreciate it? Who knows but what they don't already?
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
—Albert Camus
Back to Camus again because deep down I'm an optimistic creature. I can't live long amongst dystopic visions of the future. We are in dark times. They may grow quite a bit darker. But things change. Times change. We change, and we can make change happen. The spring always follows the winter and leads into the glory of summer.
—Albert Camus, De L'Envers et l'endroit
I have no personal trauma from September 11—it didn't happen directly to me. I just have West Coast remembrances and watching it all on TV, frantically calling back east to check on friends in NYC and DC, as many others did.
It took me two days to find out about one friend who worked at the Pentagon. He was at ground zero, and had the narrowest of narrow escapes. His entire floor was wiped out by the plane and fireball except for that one tiny corner where he and his colleagues worked. The ceiling came down on them, but there was a zone of survival and they were able to crawl out of a broken window in time to save themselves. Everyone else around them died, but he escaped with nothing more serious than bruises and cuts.
Again, I experienced this all at a remove. I saw him two weeks later and he was like a man going through the motions, it seemed to me—keeping it all together, but not taking in the world around him much. Or not letting it in. When asked, he said as much, that he was still rather numb. The reaction came later. And a year and a month later, his son was born. When I got the pictures, I wept, thinking that a few feet made the difference between that child being born and never existing; thinking of all the other children who were left orphaned or never got born.
Camus is right: history isn't everything. It's only the individual stories that matter—and the bulk of them never get told in a public way. For the most part it's only the guys who run the show, the swinging dicks, who make it into the history books.
"In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing."
—Lucille Clifton
The other thing I've been thinking a lot about on this anniversary is the threefold law: whatever we do for good or evil will come back to us threefold. I think this applies to nations and groups as well as individuals. There are evildoers I would be thrilled to see punished, but I shudder to think what price my nation may be asked to pay for the injustices we have committed in the name of retribution; of justifying a war built on pretext and lies. The United States is not the only victim here, and acting out of vengeance rather than from justice always begets more violence and injustice.
The minute this country stopped being an example of freedom and justice in the world, we lost the so-called war on terrorism. The swinging dicks hijacked my country. I have no doubt others will disagreement strongly with this, probably even my friend who survived the Pentagon crash.
And if it had been my child, my husband, my beloved who had been killed on 9/11 would I feel differently? I can't possibly say. Maybe. Perhaps the need to hit somebody—anybody—would trump the belief systems of a lifetime. I can't honestly say. I don't think anyone can honestly say what they would do in that situation. We like to think we know how we would behave in every situation, but in my experience, experience often trumps beliefs—and most of us really don't know ourselves as well as we think we do. Grief can twist you in ways you can't even anticipate.
Questions are the best friends we have in times of crisis, but impulse usually becomes our new best chum. And for a month after 9/11 I wanted to hit someone and hit them hard. But I wanted to hit the right someone, not some guy who was easy to hate and made a convenient target to distract us; some guy that some swinging dick wanted to hit to settle old scores. Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, the ones who indisputably did this to us, are still out there and issuing attack decrees.
"If someone were to weigh the beauty of moonlight against the depth of human cruelty, which would win?"
—Alice Hoffman, The River King
The moonlight, I think. The beauty of moonlight is always there, even in the cruelest places, but often we lack the eyes to see it. Nature always has the last word, so unless nature's design includes the moon falling out of the sky, moonlight will be there even after humans have destroyed themselves with cruelty. And who knows what other species will evolve on the planet to appreciate it? Who knows but what they don't already?
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
—Albert Camus
Back to Camus again because deep down I'm an optimistic creature. I can't live long amongst dystopic visions of the future. We are in dark times. They may grow quite a bit darker. But things change. Times change. We change, and we can make change happen. The spring always follows the winter and leads into the glory of summer.