TODAY

It has been this way before, and while I suppose the feeling will always remain, it is particularly affecting to be in New York on the anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Of course, this morning marked the seventh anniversary of that tragic, fateful day. In years past, my Mother would call the night before and advise me to stay away from public transportation (just in case). I would always make a deal with her, that I wouldn’t admit to using the subway, provided she didn’t ask.

A couple of years ago, on the eve of September 11th, I made my way north to 107th Street and to an evening mass at the Church of the Ascension. Near the end of the mass, the priest began to detail the next day’s arrangements, and the efforts that would be made to honor the fallen, and to remember those who rushed to their aid in New York, in Washington, and in a field in Pennsylvania.

The useful information of times and locations was suddenly upended by a personal note. “I won’t be here,” he told us. “As many of you know, I lost my nephew when the North Tower fell, and I’ll be gathering with my family at Ground Zero.” He paused for a moment before going on. “It’s the closest thing to a cemetery that we have.”

Seven years removed, and what a different world this has become. Still so many of our men and women are stationed overseas. Our civil liberties—the very lifeblood of this democracy—have been subject to debate, our privacies put in limbo over an administration’s seeming need to tap our phone lines. The aftermath of those attacks—the war in Afghanistan and the chaos in Iraq—is still an electoral lightning rod, even if both candidates have put down their rhetorical barbs, if only momentarily, and gathered together today to recognize those we lost.

Seven years removed, and I have to think that the questions still remain: Are we safer? Are we prepared? Could it happen again? With an election looming on the horizon, it is absolutely pertinent to wonder… Where do we go from here?

The 1 train runs along the west side of Manhattan, north and south from the Bronx to Battery Park. I am sitting in my office on Franklin Street, one stop north of Chambers Street, only nine streets removed from the former site of the Twin Towers. Throughout the day, ceremonies will be taking place just down the road, only a stone’s throw away. I would imagine that they’ve read the names of those who perished, and that they have stood quiet in remembrance. Meanwhile, life around the financial district quite likely presses on, at times oblivious to all that’s happening, and to all that’s happened in the past.

For a long time, I was resolved to feel that way. I wanted to wipe away the memory. Every part of me had wanted to forget, and to push away the recollection of how it felt to be alive that day.

On September 11, 2001, it wasn’t a question of where you were, or who you were, or of the flag you pledged allegiance to, with a hand pressed firmly over your heart. If you were human, and with the capacity for tolerance, then you couldn’t help but be affected and somewhat changed by the sick reality of what had transpired.

For a very long time, I had wanted nothing more than to tamp those feelings down, to keep them hidden below a placid surface. I had wanted to look the other way, to forget those names and to never again feel the way that I did that morning, when first I heard the news of an “accident”, or when the report of that accident was amended to read, “attack”.

Then I went to that mass a couple of years ago, where I was privileged to witness a priest—someone I had never met—reaching out to a congregation of strangers.

“I’ll be on the east side,” he continued. “We’ll be gathering at my sister’s parish, but you’re all invited to come over and join us.”

It was in that moment, in the sharing of a simple story, that my attitude was forever changed.

My apologies for rambling on, but I was reminded this morning of a story told some seven years ago, by a man named John Hodgman, at what was supposed to be a literary reading. It is posted every year on this date, at www.mcsweeneys.net.

Delivered in the aftermath of the attacks, his remarks were poignant, touching, and deceptively profound.

Here and now, some seven years later, I find them comforting.