A Strange Feeling

Maybe this day will never feel right for me again. It’s September 11^th and I’m hovering at 41,000 ft somewhere over the Midwest.

As the humming plane engines began their steady ascent to a deafening roar, all I could think about was how I hoped that I could sleep the entire flight from Seattle to Nashville.

Sure, I had thought of the paradox of flying on September 11^th, and yes, I did feel strange about it, but it was the time that worked out best for the trip so I went ahead and put memories aside and booked the flight. Standing in the airport terminal watching ESPN talk about during halftime of the Redskins-Vikings game, the memories of that day came back in a flood. I think it was always in the back of my mind, not as fear or anxiety but as the memory of a feeling. A mix of loss, astonishment and anger I had never felt before and haven’t since.

The plane ride was smooth as we glided swiftly above the occasional passing cloud. Just a few passing bumps before the captain came over the loudspeaker saying we were making good time became of a strong tailwind and that we would probably get into Nashville a couple of minutes early. I found it hard to sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable, my throat kept drying up and my back or neck would cramp and I’d have to shift positions. Most of the four and a half hour flight I sat looking out the window at the ground trying to clear my mind so I could sleep. I can always sleep on planes.

I was traveling with a friend and seated next to him in the isle seat was a young tall guy dressed in a Canadian tuxedo. After hearing him talk in the thickest southern accent I’ve ever heard, I wondered if he even knew of a country called Canada. Seriously, he talked like George Clooney’s character in “O brother, Where art thou?” Luckily, I had my friend as a buffer and only had to offer the occasional smile and nod to their conversation but I was definitely listening in. After talks of his job, cleaning up hazardous waste and pranks that people pull at work for fun, he leans in close to my buddy and whispers, “Do you want to hear a racial joke?” Not that jokes about race are ever a good idea, but when there’s a large black man sitting right in front of you, you shouldn’t even have to think about it. My friend tries to shrug the question off as if he didn’t hear it, so tuxedo guy persists, “Do you have any friends that are a-rab?” You have to be kidding me.

Sometime it takes a little time to fully gain perspective. You don’t tell yourself to take a step back and reevaluate later. You don’t say, “I’ll understand this better with time”, while you’re still in the moment. Realizations can dawn unexpected when you didn’t even know you were reflecting. Sometimes it takes hours, days, months, years. I know I didn’t understand the meaning or significance of events in middle school that shaped who I am until after high school. I still don’t understand the motivation behind many of my actions but I’m confident that one day I will, no matter how illogical they were. Point is revelations come with time. “Everything will be revealed in good time”, from the movies is at least partially correct in that at least some things will be revealed and that’s good enough for me.

It’s Wednesday now and I see that September 11^th will always be surreal to me. What happens on that day will always seem like a dream no matter how normal or strange the events of the day actually are. I’ll always think about it on some level. I think it’s like that for a lot of people, whether you were in one of the cities or not. I wasn’t around for large wars like the World Wars, the Korean War or the Vietnam War. For Generation X, all those 20 and 30 somethings, our loss of innocence came on September 11^th and I know that we’ll never be the same again.