Questioning that instinct

This was the first September 11th anniversary that felt essentially like an ordinary day to me. I had a great workday and then a lovely (surprise) night of sex, very simple and sweet and relaxed, both of us sort of agreeing in an unspoken way to be in the light. I remember the first sex I had after 9/11, so intense and amplified -- still not breathing normally, still with ash-lungs and still with hypersensitivity to the sounds of planes and helicopters circling our city -- both of us wondering if we'd ever stop feeling caught between life and death or feeling the presence in our own bodies of the fragmented human bodies we knew we'd inhaled.

I do still sometimes look at the streets and remember the mountains of ash piled higher than the cars, or that first morning in the middle of the cloud when the world was opaque -- but those flashes aren't really connected to a point on the calendar. I feel like the day itself has lost significance as it's expanded into so much more horror, in the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the dizzying range of terrorist actions by the U.S. theoretically in response to that day. The day has been diluted as a moment of human horror and certainly as a moment of Terrorism, even as Americans have been stripped of so much in the name of 'preparing' for terrorism.

Over the course of this summer I've had reason to put a lot of thought into the idea of living in a state of readiness, that state of 'being prepared for the worst' that's been drummed into Americans and especially New Yorkers since 9/11. Earlier this summer I wrote a poem, the start of which was: "Oh yes. I remember the sickness of living in a State of Readiness. Pairs of soldiers with automatic rifles standing, silent, in every subway station; the collective nightmares so clear, unspeakable but unmistakable, pulsing in strangers' eyes. Eight million bodies waking up in the same sweat. And almost seven years later, the stations still infested, now with the latest poster campaign -- If You See Something, Say Something -- and seven years later every backpack still subject to random search. (Surveillance and blank suggestible fear, the tattered security blankets we won't travel without.) You must imagine the scenario in detail in order to survive it. Preparation is control, the only possible control. If you have no agency, you must imagine a state of emergency-agency: what you would do, who you would be, what you would take and leave behind."

Interestingly, part of the ease and non-event-ness of this September 11th is connected to my process, this summer, of being forced to re-examine and really question that instinct toward 'readiness for the worst.' That instinct is definitely not a natural one for me (nor should it be for anybody who's lucky enough to live in a relatively stable, secure, free country). My process of reaffirming my natural orientation toward intense investment in the present, with 'planning' implying optimism and confidence rather than fear.