If you follow me on Twitter, I’ve been griping a bit about the total media saturation of 9/11 programs, memorials, analyses and whatever else. On the radio on Friday, I heard a song that was mixed with a little girl reading a letter to her dead father. I was driving at the time. I had to pull over.
It’s not that I resist any effort to remember that particular day. I can promise I won’t forget. If you show me footage, I get nauseated and sweaty. I remember what 9/11 smelled like, and I’m not exaggerating or attempting to be funny.
I remember the smell of everything burning. I remember the day the ash cloud turned and coated everything. I remember after that when someone set fire to the flag on our porch, and dusty, ash covered Jersey City firefighters who had just come off a shift at what was later called “ground zero” responded to my 911 call to make sure the house was safe and the fire was out. I very clearly remember the captain admonishing, “Watch your goddam language in front of the lady.”
What gets me so angry and tense about this time of year, especially this year, is the sense that I’m being told how to feel. I hate being told how I ought to feel and when I ought to feel it.
I wasn’t going to say anything here about 9/11 – it’s a site about romance novels, after all, not politics. But with readers in so many countries who have faced terrorism like us, from Jakarta to Madrid to Oslo to London and many other places in between, we all know at this point a little piece of how it feels and how it felt. We share that in common.
But I got to thinking, because I’d turned the radio off and I had to do something in the quiet, that we also have romance in common, a positive to balance out the negative we’ve experienced. Each romance novel we read is an invitation to feel. Each romance novel we have in common represents a similar experience of feeling. Part of the goal in writing and reading romance is emotional engagement, empathy and sympathy, perhaps even identification and admiration of the characters. Romances are about emotions – intimate ones. And every time we choose one to read, we’re welcoming that collection of intense emotions into our lives for the time we read that book. We are inviting the experience of feeling each time we open a novel.
And because romances induce emotions and create feelings that are strong and intimate, each book we experience together creates a common emotion. That might be the origin of “good book noise” that I talk about sometimes: the knowledge that when we read that same book, we both felt the same way, had similar reactions, and think in similar fashion about the emotional experience of the story.
Having feelings in common is a powerful thing. One thing I will absolutely never forget about 9/11 is how everyone around me on 9/12 and 9/13 and afterward felt similarly. “How are you?” became a ridiculous question. We knew how we were. We were the opposite of “fine.” But we did so many amazing, generous, caring things at that time. It is so rare that people feel the exact same way, or so closely similar that we know with near certainty that our pain is shared. Now, we all feel so differently about the past ten years and what it has meant, what it has changed. We no longer feel the same way, nor do we share those same identical feelings as we did at that time. There is no one way to determine how we ought to observe, how we ought to remember.
We romance readers seek that same common experience, though, with books and with each other. We know when we meet a fellow reader that we have a wonderful book or a wonderful memory of a story in common. We have a connection through emotional experience. That connection between us is a powerful thing and I’m glad we share it.
I think that says a great deal about what we have in common, all of us here on this site from countries around the world speaking countless different languages. We want to experience the connection of happiness, of knowing that in some places, everything will always be all right.
So while I’m overwhelmed and probably avoiding television, radio, the internet and newspapers as much as I can today to avoid being swallowed by the feelings that those memories bring, I’m also seeking out the other emotions, looking for completion, assurance, peace and celebration. That’s why I read romance. And that’s why I’m so glad you come to read and discuss and celebrate it with me. I know that we have so much in common.
I wish you comforting feelings today.
I too, have avoided the media coverage this past week as much as possible. For one thing, I remember the actual day clearly, there is no need to rewind and play it again.
I hate the idea that the media has cast Americans into the passive role of victim over and over again these past ten years. In small towns all over the USA people are encouraged to FEAR other cultures and hide behind plastic and duct tape. I’m sorry, the world was never perfectly safe. It was always fascinating, diverse, and above all intertwined. We do everyone a disservice if we only focus on American losses and not try to understand the complicated interactions happening in the world very day.
I don’t understand the media’s strange compulsion to quantify grief. Is it truly harder to lose a loved one in a violent act than in an industrial accident, or a sudden heart attack? I think grief stems from the magnitude of the loss, not the direct cause. Any sudden death causes the survivors to second guess all the events that led to it.
As you said – you don’t want to be told how to feel. I don’t want to be told to be heartbroken and afraid. I want to be told to be angry and pro-active. This is my world and I want everyone to be safe, secure and engaged in it.
Thank you Sarah. I agree. I will never forget what happened on this day, however I refuse to let those monsters difine this day for me. What happened ten years ago was almost the worst thing that I remember happening in my life. (For me it was the loss of both of my grandmothers at ages 14 and 17.) It was a defining moment in the history of September 11. I can not allow it to be THE defining moment. I remember what happened every day of my life. I also remember Pearl Harbor althoght that was well before my time, and Oklahoma City everyday. I remember being at school and watching the coverage just after OKC when we had no clue what had really just happened. That day made me even more sick since it was one of our own. I choose to define September 11 by all the othe things that have happened and will happen on that date. Think about all the people who have been born on that day, were married on that day, met their soul mate on that day. Those are THE defining moments of that day. What happened ten years ago was just the most horible thing to happen on that day. I refuse to even allow the monsters to win by allowing what they did to define that one day for me. I will never forget what they did. I remember those who have died and those who serve us everyday. I pray daily for those who are serving us and those who are standing ready to serve us. Today I took my son to churhc taught the 4’s and 5’s in Sunday School, bought my son an m&m cookie and took him on a bike ride. It was a Sunday like so many others. I am still able to do that, and that tells me that those monsters have not won.
Ditto
Beautiful post. I did end up watching quite a bit of the NY Memorial—on C-Span, because they just show it without commentary. A few things struck me:
– ten years on, the NY memorial does seem to include multiple ways for people to grieve and commemorate. The relatives reading the names expressed their love and loss in a whole range of ways, from invoking religion, to thanking the construction workers, to at least two kids who said “Go Blue!” in honor of their loved ones. I’d also read stories about families who skip the big events and observe the day in other ways.
-during the reading of the names, inevitably one reader would start to cry, and their partner—someone who was bound to them only through this shared loss—would reach out with a hand or an arm to steady them. It was such a strong visual reminder of how people did reach out 10 years ago, and that it’s still a possibility, a requirement even, today.
I have a different take on the media coverage. Every story I have seen covers grief, but also hope. The amazing response of people, regular people, bringing whatever they had to offer. Blankets, towels, or just a sign that said “YOU’RE DOING GREAT!” outside a firestation.
I agree that no one should be told how to feel. But I don’t know how the media can ignore this day. And I don’t think they are doing a disservice to us by acknowledging that. Interviews with first responders and victims do NOT tell us how to feel. They give voice to the people who were there and tell us how THEY feel.
We get to decide if we want to participate in that, if we are saturated and it won’t impact how we feel any further, if the best in us tells us that moving forward means that this is just a normal day. For me, it was. I did a buttload of post-move housecleaning.
But I don’t think that the people who chose to remember the day by watching the media coverage constantly are invalidated. Whatever you need to to do, THIS DAY, is valid. It is a big day, a big memory, and different for everybody.
September 11th I saw the towers fall on tv. September 12 I saw people literally spit on my best friend because he is of Arab descent. September 13th people shot up my best friends house because his father was an Arab immigrant. We were 10, and everything changed. ADULTS who had known my friend for his entire life (small town) SPIT on him as he walked to school because he was Arab. This year my friend and I are 20, and this year my friend got beat up by a group of white men while walking home from work because he is/looks middle eastern. No one can ever tell me how I should feel about September 11th, or what I should really grieve for.
‘Never forget’ is the one that makes me shake my head in complete awe. Forgetting just isn’t an option. I can’t stop hearing the screams, the fear from that first plane flying overhead after, the mad scramble to find members of my far-flung family, feeling powerless and flaccid in the face of it all.
I’m glad you posted this, Sarah. Hearing about BBQs, birthdays and regular life with real people makes it feel a little less abrasive.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to watch it again- the footage and specials. I’m not sure if I need to.
I like thinking of us having anti-PTSD with our romance novels. All the trips we’ve taken together- even though we all may never meet. We’ve seen high sea hijinks, grand balls with glittering gowns, sultry American Summer nights with crickets and sweet tea, the qrey mists that bless Europe and wrap it in quiet- even the heat and impossible blue skies of Australia.
That shell-shocked feeling of solidarity after 9/11 wore off and I think I forgot that it could be replaced with a different type of solidarity. Thank you for this post, Sarah. Big thanks.
Well said! All that could possibly be done to re-traumatize everyone was done. I did not like it either. We could not forget even if we wanted to. But hope and love prevail. thank you for a great post!
Excellent post. I’m also glad I’m not alone in wanting to avoid the coverage. Of course we’ll nver forget. We shouldn’t. But for me, dwelling on it makes me angry. What happened that day was unforgivable, but its led to some of the wrong people getting the blame, and I don’t want to be angry at innocent people. I don’t want to carry around the hate and let it fester, because it’s hate for past actions that contributed to this type of cowardice in the first place. Opening up the wounds won’t help them heal.
Thank you for this. I was in my first semester of grad school, and my first semester of teaching, when it happened. I remember the raw horror on everyone’s faces, and what had to be close to a thousand students crammed into the student center, some standing on the decorative planters, every face glued to the televisions.
While there have been parts of the memorial hoopla that I have appreciated (there was a series on Yahoo about how people have moved on that I found beautiful, and a similar series of photographs that were very meaningful), I’ve been disgusted by how much we’ve turned 9/11 into some kind of national fetish. I live in West Virginia now, and they have license plates that say “9/11: Never Forget.” In West Virginia, for God’s sake!
This year I’ve been very forcibly reminded that while national and international tragedies are remembered, people’s lives go on, with all the joys and sorrows that come with life. On Saturday, a former colleague whom I and everyone else adored died after a long and painful illness. And that sorrow (and relief that she is no longer suffering) was still very fresh yesterday as we read a litany for the dead in church. To the point where I had to stop, because I wouldn’t be able to read without crying.
(My church handled the anniversary beautifully, I think. We read a simple litany that honored the living and the dead, and the homily focused on using remembrance not as a time to relive the past, but as a way to move forward and be better people.)
@Gretchen Galway
Buy this documentary and show it to them when they are a little older. Here’s a link:
http://tinyurl.com/3samztt
Amazing film by two French filmakers making a documentary about a rookie fireman. The brothers were filming on 911 and were with Engine Co 1. One was outside, one was inside the tower at the command post. Almost as if God planned it that way to make a record of the day.
I turned off the media yesterday for the same reasons other people shared. I don’t need to be told how to feel.
While I completely respect every individual’s right to remember the 9/11 tragedy in whatever way he or she feels compelled to do – or not do, as may be the case – I do see one positive in all of the media hyper-coverage that makes it practically impossible to avoid. Right now, it seems our country is so torn apart by politics, finger pointing as to who and what are to blame for the poor economy and what to do going forward, disagreement over our foreign policies, and so many other things. In calling forward the anniversary of 9/11, we can remember that for one horrible day and the long, devastating weeks and months that followed, we came together as a people. We realized that there was far more that joined us than separated us. That for however brief a time, we put aside our differences to help our fellow men and women, and we put into perspective what we, as a people and as a country, needed to value. Since I certainly don’t want any other such tragedies to happen in order for us to re-embrace our compassion and patriotism, I’ll take over-saturated anniversary coverage to spark those feelings instead.
I think it’s good the coverage. We have kids growing older who don’t understand what happened, who have no sense of history (Hell they don’t even know all the states or who is the president half the time!).
HOWEVER, the over dramatized, focus on agony, type of coverage is not needed. The focus on the positive, the strengthening of personal bonds, of learning to grieve and move on, that is positive and should be talked about. I hate that grieving seems to be “not cool” lately. Like we can shed a tear and then get the F over it. 10 years and people are still grieving, still wondering, still moving on. That’s a positive thing.
Positive – we all unite for one positive moment
Negative – we’re whipped into a grieving frenzy
I’ve been being quietly disgusted with the coverage of the destruction of the Twin Towers for ten years now, and I don’t plan to stop any time soon. I refuse to use the cutesy “9/11” since, as someone upthread pointed out most of the world writes it “11/9” and if you’re going to make the date sacred, you might as well dedicate it to September 11, 1714, which is a day of mourning in Barcelona for the death of the Catalan nation. Or any other number of tragedies and triumphs.
BUT, since I WAS in New York at the time, I do think that I have to bear witness to something which I believe has been deliberately erased from memory and which is important: in the days immediately following the World Trade Center’s destruction, flyers appeared all over New York City. They were mostly black and white xeroxed copies, on standard 8 1/2” x 11” paper, the kind that you can make cheaply. Some of them were even handwritten. They were taped to lampposts and parking signs in both Manhattan and Brooklyn, through neighborhoods that crossed ethnic, racial and economic divides. What did they say?
These signs showed up BEFORE the ubiquitous American flags. But the flags were sturdy, and hung from proper flag poles, and these were just pieces of paper that washed away in the rain, and I was too stupid to take photos to document them. But the world should know and remember that the REAL response of New Yorkers to the attack on our city was NOT the vengeful “never forget” but an ignored plea that one evil act not be used as the pretext for others. The terrorists killed a few thousand people. The people who ignored those flyers have the blood of many thousands more on their hands.
I was in New York too, and I guess those signs didn’t make it as far as Queens. Our signs said “Arabs go home.” It was disgusting. My neighborhood isn’t known for its amicability—we have had 2 hate crimes separated by a span of 20 years (the first in 1986 was nationally reported and even spawned a tv movie starring the guy who played Mr. Feeney on Boy Meets World), so that type of reaction wasn’t unexpected.
A couple of weeks after the attacks, a girl in my art class was being harassed by a bunch of our classmates solely because she was visibly Muslim. A small group of us stopped them—our teacher was a complete asshat and let the torment go on. from then on she was safe at least in art (it probably helped that one of the guys that stopped it was the scariest looking person i have ever seen).
The thing is that while it is nice to think that the average American was for peace, in my experiences the average American isn’t educated enough to believe in peace—and September 11th brought out the bloodlust.
My issue with 9/11 coverage is the same one I have with just about everything to do with the media nowadays. (Or perhaps, it’s always been this way.) As you note, it all feels so calculated and contrived, an endless campaign to wring every bit of emotion, and by default advertising dollar out of the tragedy.
I told my husband earlier in the week, “Thank dog September 11 is on a Sunday.” Because we are always out of touch on the weekends. No television news; no internet, etc. We passed the weekend as we always do. Living life.
Thank you, so much. You’ve put what I’ve felt exactly into the right words. I’m sick to death of being told how to feel about not only 9/11, but any major death or tragedy. It’s like the media enforces a pack mentality of grief, where we all have to feel the same way, act the same way, say the same things.
My best friend just lost her father to a case of a very nasty and fast acting mesothelioma. He went from initial diagnosis to death within 9 months. One of the things I’ve noticed about her during her ordeal is that she deals with her grief quietly, not showing her emotions to others. A family member mentioned this to me at the memorial, as if it were a failing or a flaw in her psyche. Like she isn’t allowed to grieve in her own manner in her own space. Like she doesn’t know her own heart.
I think I will be avoiding media commemorations of 9/11 far into the future, if not for the rest of my life. I don’t need the national media telling me “YOU FEEL BAD. YOU CRY NOW,” to know how I feel and how to express my own feelings.
Thanks for sharing your views on this. I avoided all the coverage over the weekend too. I just remember the anger I felt ten years ago. It was irrational and ugly and it makes me a little ill to think about it even now. But 9/11 is the reason I started reading romances again. I was so mad and the coverage was so horrific I needed to escape into something with a happy ending and romances fit the bill. I was in grad school (library science) and hadn’t read a romance in a VERY long time, but I swept through every title I could lay my hands on following the horror. It grounded me and helped me to remember there was good stuff around me.
My captcha word is story57 – yeah I probably read 57 or more romances in the days and weeks following 9/11.
Okay, so I’m in a College Lit class right now, and I just finished interpreting a whole bunch of non-western love poetry, and two “response papers” so when I read this post, my brain was looking for the answer to
“What was the most powerful thing in the reading?”
My answer would be,
Which I would argue is true for just about every work of Literature, Poetry or Art, not just Romance.
Beautifully put. Thank you.
Thanks for the honesty, Sarah.
I confess there was some anger in me when I saw all that coverage, but for different reasons.
No one remembers Bhopal. In 1984, the leak from a US owned Union Carbide plant (makers of Eveready batteries) in the Indian city caused more than 9000 deaths. Nearly 560,000 people were seriously injured and many more continue to suffer. Did the victims get justice? No. Does the world remember this? No.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not diminishing the suffering and the wrong caused to the deceased and families of the 9-11 bombings.
But there is no outpouring of grief of a global scale for the people of Bhopal. The perpetrators of the wrong done got away easy.
I try and reconcile the proportionality of the responses, but fail.
I’m, glad others felt this way too!
This past Sunday I had to work, and I did not want to go there feeling depressed about the day, so I chose to not watch TV or listen to the radio that morning. After getting off work and eating dinner and relaxing, I decided it was then time to turn the tv back on, but not to watch the crap that was produced for emotion and ratings, but for the original footage that I had taped as things were unfolding on September 11th 2001. Then I cried like a baby and said prayers.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for expressing exactly what I felt throughout the whole anniversary run up—that being told how and when to feel is just offensive. I avoided all coverage for the same exact reason (and wound up finally understanding the appeal of Top Gear, which is useful in some social situations). My local paper, in KEY WEST, was nothing but 9/11, which I just found offensive beyond belief. As opposed to the New York Times in, you know, NEW YORK CITY, which had a special section, a story on the front page about a neighborhood in Queens and some stuff in the magazine. Which seemed exactly right. Sheesh. Anyway thanks for expressing those thoughts. They needed to be said. And congrats on the book—I’ll be ordering one!