Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke / risin' against that blue sky? ~Alan Jackson - Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)
I was in third period, Creative Foods, when someone mentioned planes being delayed somewhere. We didn't turn on the news (was there even a TV in the room?), and though word had spread by lunchtime that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, it wasn't until last period band that a teacher allowed us to watch the news. It was surreal to see the footage, over and over, playing like a disaster movie, except the disaster was not just a figment of Hollywood imagination anymore.
I knew it was a big deal not when I viewed the video, not when I got home and jumped on every news site I could find, and not when I spoke with my parents on the phone, allaying our mutual fears. Oddly enough, I knew it was a big deal when I read that Disney World had closed for the rest of the day. Growing up in Orlando, I knew that Disney closed for no man or weather phenomena, and so to read that it had, I seemed to understand finally the gravity of the situation.
The next days I don't recall at all. We went to school. We went on with our lives as usual, I guess. In the ten years since, I can't say that my normal routine has been disrupted at all by what happened. I have never been to Ground Zero, the Pentagon, or Shanksville, nor do I want to. But maybe I have changed, in the smallest of ways, in that I appreciate the United States more now than ever. Since September 11, 2001, I have become an American citizen. I say the pledge every day, even if my students don't, and I love the national anthem, whether I'm playing it with the community band or singing it at a sporting event. I am blessed to live in this country, and I hope that the tragedy of September 11, 2001, helps us to recognize, if nothing else, that what we have here - freedom, democracy, diversity - is precious.
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