anniversaries
At this point, the self-conscious memorialization makes me cringe--the covers of the tabloids glimpsed on the subway this morning, the hysterical moralizing on the television screen. It seems indulgent and almost offensive, given all the dying and suffering elsewhere, to insist on the importance of this particular event--especially in light of what it has been used to justify.
But there's no denying the significance of this date in shaping my life, long before I became a New Yorker--I was in southern Turkey, en route to Syria, on that morning. My funding for the trip was temporarily canceled in the aftermath of the attacks, so I flew back to the States a few weeks later, only returning the following spring. But the context and meaning of that journey were primary factors in my decision to shift focus and take up the study of the Middle East in graduate school. Another was the experience of returning to a university striving to inform a broader public in a moment of crisis--seeing my mentors rise to the occasion in tremendous fashion, and trying to assist them through my own efforts as a teaching assistant for the first time.
So many of my fellow students, my contemporaries, colleagues, now my friends, were also drawn to our work by the questions posed in the aftermath. I wonder where we'd all be otherwise, now.
Still, right now I'm not thinking of that anniversary so much as others. Today marks my first year working in my current job (I won't forget my start date, having written 9/11 over and over again all the forms). With luck, this is a relationship that will endure in one form or another. It's been a blessing in more ways than I can count.
And as of today, Kian's been in prison for four months-an anniversary we hope not to have to note again.
I'm glad I'm here, doing this work, in this New York. If we're marking anniversaries, I like what Abbas Raza had to say here. Also, it's the thirty-fourth September 11th: remember that one, too.
But there's no denying the significance of this date in shaping my life, long before I became a New Yorker--I was in southern Turkey, en route to Syria, on that morning. My funding for the trip was temporarily canceled in the aftermath of the attacks, so I flew back to the States a few weeks later, only returning the following spring. But the context and meaning of that journey were primary factors in my decision to shift focus and take up the study of the Middle East in graduate school. Another was the experience of returning to a university striving to inform a broader public in a moment of crisis--seeing my mentors rise to the occasion in tremendous fashion, and trying to assist them through my own efforts as a teaching assistant for the first time.
So many of my fellow students, my contemporaries, colleagues, now my friends, were also drawn to our work by the questions posed in the aftermath. I wonder where we'd all be otherwise, now.
Still, right now I'm not thinking of that anniversary so much as others. Today marks my first year working in my current job (I won't forget my start date, having written 9/11 over and over again all the forms). With luck, this is a relationship that will endure in one form or another. It's been a blessing in more ways than I can count.
And as of today, Kian's been in prison for four months-an anniversary we hope not to have to note again.
I'm glad I'm here, doing this work, in this New York. If we're marking anniversaries, I like what Abbas Raza had to say here. Also, it's the thirty-fourth September 11th: remember that one, too.
posted by kitabet at 7:46 PM
3 Comments:
September 11th also commemorates Catalonia's defeat to the Spanish troops of Phillip V of Bourbon, marking the end of national sovereignty.
hey elizabeth,
thank you for the link to Abbas Raza's poem, 'How we became important?' ... its honesty and its humility (but selfawareness that the humility came too late, and after taking advantage of the situation) is searing, it hurts. not enough - well, i;ll confine myself to pakistani muslims, me included - acknowledge this often enough: how we took advantage of how we became important overnight? ... i want to talk about it all with you. this coming weekend, perhaps.
love,
sameen
lee-sean, i didn't know you read by blog! congratulations on the new job, and thanks for the historical tidbit.
dear S: some weekend soon. or we'll talk it over in the conde nast lunchroom, once upon a time? if you aren't reading 3 Quarks regularly, you should be.
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