2003-09-11 - 6:13 p.m.
Making myself late to appointments of my own making, at my own house, because sometimes starting at the computer screen feels like a comfort. I wrote a little pamphlet that I gave to people at school today, called "reflections two years since". I am going to be sending it to friends as well, so if you want one, email me your address... but anyway... I am not sure what to say right now, except to know that it is hard to feel the pain of this day knowing what the US has turned this greif and rememberence into. I mostly feel bitterness. But today I am able to cry more freely the tears I couldn't not shed for months two years ago. Tears not only for what happened in NYC and DC, but tears for what the US would do and has done, tears of rage and sadness about oppression and domination.
I am thinking about the person I was two years ago and the person I am now. We are the same, but in many ways living through September 11th, 2001 in such proximity to the World Trade Center, has taught me lessons it would have taken me years to learn. It has altered the course of my life, effected the choices I have made and will make. I find myself more serious, more anxious, more committed and more confused. I need more time and I want change to happen now, because it must. It has made me feel more need for radical art, for conversations and creations that address world situations, that address us as political and historical subjects. It has made me think more seriously about the need for love, empathy and support from other people. It has filled me with a need to speak and write and tied my tougue and blocked my pen.
Can I make my self understood? September 11th, 2001 has made me question language's capacity. Can you understand how I need revolution and justice, love, empathy, not war and lies and empire and tyranny? And in my needing I am searching for ways to enact these as a very privileged white American? How I never feel like I say or listen enough?
And how I want to scream, "I love you, I love you" and feel the comfort of my friends?
