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New York still mourning while the rest of the country looks aheadSep 30 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line New York and the rest of the country will come through.... but mourning takes time. [Note: I've put this essay in this category because someone suggested it wasn't appropriate as review on New York City. If you know a better category for this, let me know.] The whole country is upset about the terrorist attacks in New York City. But are we all in the same place in our mourning, grief, and anger? I moved out of the city a year ago to go to school in Baltimore, having lived in New York for four years. I discovered that in those four years, I had become a New Yorker. I lived in Brooklyn, first in Bay Ridge and then in Park Slope. I worked in Manhattan, first at a publishing company, then a social service agency, and finally a research institute. I got rid of my car. I traveled home to visit my family by Metro North. I had become, I discovered, one of those people who referred to it as "the city" (a name that had previously ground on my nerves for its pompousness) and who incessantly compared every aspect of any other place to NY. What? You don't know where to get Ethiopian food around here? Can't I just run to the nearest bodega and pick up some milk? What do you mean you have to drive to get there? The museum isn't open on a Friday night? Are you suggesting I actually wear a color other than black? Yes, black is a color! New York City and the rest of the country seemed to be two different cultures. It had taken me a while to get used to the brash culture of New York, and now I needed to tone down my reactions to what I perceived as suburban cities (in every sense of "sub") and learn to appreciate what the rest of the country has to offer. This happens over time of course. But on September 11, my heart and mind was back in New York City. Seeing the WTC towers crumble on t.v. seemed unreal. I wasn't there. This couldn't be happening. But I saw the people running in the streets (streets I used to walk on to go to work) and I heard New Yorkers talking about their experiences, the fear and confusion. I had a friend who worked in the World Trade Center and it took me a few hours to find out that he hadn't gone to work that morning and was safe at home. He watched the collapse of his office building from his rooftop in the Village. This was a shock to the entire country. We all sat in front of our televisions and computers that day, waiting for information and watching the horror unfold. But within a few days, it seemed, the horror had begun to sink in and people were thinking, what next? Within a week of the bombings of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton authorized two bombings. Yet, this is more complicated. This affected far more Americans (in fact, the bombings of the embassies killed fewer Americans than local Kenyan and Tanzanian people) but yet, the source of the attacks is unclear. How to find the people who instigated and planned this is unclear. Outside of New York, it seems that everyone is now focused on these questions. And I am too. But I am also feeling a little left behind, with my remaining grief. From what I am told by my friends in New York, it is like this for them too. They are seeing news about how the U.S. will react and punish. And for some people, this is how they deal with tragedy. It is a tangible way to address the pain and anger. But for others, it takes time to process what has happened and learn how to deal with normal life again. It takes time for the fear to go away. Now, it is brought back every time they hear a plane overhead, or the crashing sound of a truck going over a pothole in the road. (My friend who didn't go to work in the WTC heard the first plane crash and decided that it must have been a truck. After all, what else could cause such a crashing sound?) So, it is difficult to be outside of New York right now, where it seems that everyone is focused on the future. Of course, I am almost certainly overgeneralizing. Everyone feels the pain in their own way. And I will be o.k. And New York will be o.k. Another friend of mine in New York said, "New York will never be the same." Maybe not. But New York will recover. Just watching New York's response to this tragedy shows me that the city has the strength and will to get through this.  |
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by artemis8
by knotheadusc
