Markers

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                                             Markers
 
            It’s 19 years since the Towers fell.  If you were alive, and if you are old enough, you remember exactly where you were when you first heard the news.  I had just started driving down Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island, on my way to the Brown University Education Department, when I heard Warner Wolf on the Imus in the Morning Program trying to describe what he was seeing in Lower Manhattan --- a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers.  I turned around, went home and flipped on the television to see the damage.  The memory that is indelibly seared in my mind was seeing the second plane on the horizon, flying low over the Hudson River and banking left as it appeared just south of the buildings.  It was a horror-movie moment.  I knew where that plane was headed and couldn’t do a thing about it, watching  in disbelief, in the slow-motion, suspended-time that overtakes our senses in a moment of trauma.  Both Towers were in flames and we were speechless, horrified, confused, frightened.  We heard about the Pentagon, about Shanksville, Pennsylvania --- would there be more and more tragedies as the day went on?  Were we under a prolonged attack?  We didn’t know.

            9/11 is one of the markers in our collective memory.  For Baby-boomers there is a list of such markers (Sputnik, JFK, MLK, RFK, Watergate, the Challenger, Oklahoma City, and then 9/11) --- as well as for the Greatest Generation (the Baby-boomer parents): the Depression, Pearl Harbor, V-E & V-J Day, McCarthy, plus the Baby-boomer list --- and now we can all add this Pandemic.  For anyone born after 9/11, the Pandemic is probably their first marker --- an event they will remember throughout their lives, a touchstone.  Given that we’re  in the midst of this crisis, however, we lack  perspective.  When we look back at any of those earlier events that constitute our markers we see them through a (personal) historic lens --- each of us providing an angle or view created by personal circumstances (how old were we, where were we, who were we interacting with, etc.).  Today, in the midst of this crisis, we can’t apply any perspective whatsoever --- it’s simply too soon.

            Those who remember 9/11, think not only about that day but the period that followed:  the uncertainty, the garbled facts slowly being put together, the conspiracy theories that emerged (the Bush Administration was behind it!  Jews were behind it!) and so forth.  9/11 was a singular traumatic event --- a day that served as a rock in a pool of tragedy.  2997 people died that day --- and thousands have succumbed since from the lingering effects of the toxic rubble.  As of this morning there have been 192,000+ deaths from Covid-19 and there’s no sense of an end in sight.  Unlike marker events for earlier generations, the prolonged nature of this Pandemic makes it far more unsettling.  That it is an “invisible enemy” only adds to our trauma --- a “once in a century” event is greater than most of us can wrap our imaginations around.  Understandably so.  While earlier markers for Baby-boomers were predominantly singular (Watergate being an exception --- but it was within a scope, a Constitutional framework we could grasp), this pandemic is more like our parents’ generation’s Depression --- which continued over years and years.  It’s lethality was more subtle and not as dramatic. 

            Today is a clear, cool day --- just as that Tuesday in 2001 was.  What happened, in that immediate moment, was incomprehensible.  And here we are, 19 years later, facing another incomprehensible moment.  We have already spent 6 months isolating, wearing masks, washing our hands incessantly, socially distancing, keeping hand sanitizer everywhere --- and there’s no clear end in sight.  Schools are attempting to open, colleges are scurrying to deal with early outbreaks, the NFL started its season last night and the U.S. Open is headed into its “Finals” weekend as Major League Baseball is trying to cobble together a foreshortened “season” in hope of crowning a World Series champion.  Kids are trying to make sense of a world that makes no sense and the adults they look to for help and support have no answers.  As a former teacher, there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to help your students.  I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like for parents.  Watching the Lovely Carol Marie’s children deal with the grandchildren (ages 14, 11, 9, 4.5, and 6 months) has a heartbreaking element to it, despite their best (and herculean!) efforts.  Speaking to friends who are teachers (and the LCM’s daughter, of course) it is mind-boggling to consider what is required this September --- whether it’s “remote learning,” or in-school, or some “hybrid.”  The lack of leadership --- starting at the Federal level but  filtering all the way down through State, county, town, village, and school board levels --- has also made this crisis all the more excruciating and debilitating.

            As we reflect on the 9/11 of 2001, let’s try, as best we can, to seek some perspective, considering how we can make the most of each day in these trying circumstances, and support everyone in our community.  The politics of our time makes that difficult --- Covid “truthers” and “no-maskers” are a problem, but let’s err in the belief that most of our fellow citizens are well-intentioned and trying, as we are, to make the best of a horrible situation.  Ultimately, things will change.  By the 20th anniversary of 9/11 we can hope that we’re looking back on the worst days of the pandemic as history and we’ve got the energy that, traditionally, new school-year Septembers have always brought us.  It’s not the best news I could deliver but I’m not sure what  alternative to look for.
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                                                 Stay safe.  Wash your hands.  Vote on November 3rd!