Six days after my 26th birthday, and precisely 10 years ago today, Mom awoke me at 8:49 a.m. and suggested I turn on the TV. She said an airplane crashed into the World Trade Center.
My ears perked. I turned down the prospect of sleeping to watch CNN.
I don’t need to tell you my eyes were glued to that TV the rest of the morning. I channel surfed to gain different camera angles and unedited commentaries. I was addicted.
As the FBI investigated leads across the country, I remembered visiting those cities during a 24,000-mile roadtrip that ended a week earlier. Las Vegas, Phoenix, Sacramento, Boston. When the feds thought terrorists boarded a ferry from Nova Scotia to Maine a week before 9/11, I shuddered that they could have been on my ferry!
People bought American flags and patriotism ran amok.
I repeated the beginning of that viewing experience last week when I stumbled onto the 9/11 Television News Archive.
The internet archive at that link contains 3,000 hours of domestic and international news coverage from 20 channels over the seven days beginning on September 11, 2001. It launched last month. It’s surreal.
Before I changed my mind to give in and write something about 9/11, I planned to share with you a video about a cardboard box.
That didn’t seem proper at first. But, 9/11 also is about the tenderness of life and the dreams we share.
Maybe the video is what we need to watch to reflect about our fragility.