Looking Down Lens on What Was and Is 9/11

Like everyone, I can remember exactly where I was when the World Trade Center was hit on 9/11/2001. Each year, I have reflected on that historic day, what I was doing in that particular chapter of my life, and compare it where I sit in my life’s most current chapter.

Now in 2020, I am looking back to 9/11/2001 from these historic times of COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and the Trump presidency. In fact, it’s as if I’m viewing the past down a pair of binoculars reversed, creating a tunnel to a far distant time, a minuscule moment that funnels back to today in gigantic proportions.

This is not to say the senseless act of terror that resulted in loss of thousands of lives on 9/11 was not a catastrophe and national crisis. In fact, it was a wake up call that our country is impenetrable from outside attacks.

This realization certainly was a shock to me at the time sitting in my cubicle at a large magazine publishing firm reporting on such emerging technologies as smartphones, WiFi, Bluetooth, and watching TV over the Internet.

And, as I and most of my coworkers emerged from our section of the cube farm to join the rest of the company in the kitchen, we were floored by two conflicting thoughts. Glued to the TV as we watched the Twin Towers fall, we couldn’t figure our where all the unfamiliar faces in the office came from, yet in such anonymity, we also found community and a sense of unity. No matter where we were on the org chart, we were not alone in facing this traumatic national event.

On reflecting back today, it seems that our experiences of national crisis have ballooned over the past 20 years, culminating in the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting financial free fall for small business and working people.

And then, we have a president who calls himself a populist, but in every way cow-tows to corporations and their drive to maximizing profits. His lack of leadership in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in 175,000 deaths and counting.

Today, I have started a new chapter in my life as one of the thousands of recently unemployed, laid off when my firm cut back staff to keep the business afloat. Like us all, I watch shops and restaurants in my neighborhood close down, not to mention increasing numbers of homeless ask for money outside the supermarket. I have also been more frightened than not, seeing militia and police roaming downtown with guns and clubs, some sort of protection against what are mostly peaceful Black Lives Matter protests.

Yet, as if in a parallel universe to 9/11/2001, there is a sense, despite our six-month isolation due to the pandemic lockdown, of unity even among strangers. Not only are we in it together as a country, but also for the first time across the globe. Certainly an appreciation of global community and distance learning has been fueled by technology and connectivity via Zoom and other webinar products in exciting ways no one predicted. Yet, every day venturing out from the home front, I am deeply touched with the small kindnesses of strangers I encounter, doing small things such as keeping a social distance and wearing a mask. There is the ongoing recognition of and gratitude for essential workers and medical staff on the frontlines.

Meanwhile, generations of police brutality and other forms of systemic racism have brought brought both black and white to take to the streets nationwide. I am inspired and moved to action everyday to fight for this new unity, one that honors diversity and equality, and builds an equitable society for all.

As I remember the historic event of 9/11/2001, I view the historic events we are living through in 2020 to be of far more gigantic proportions than I’d ever imagine if by chance I could gaze back through my binoculars from my cubicle in 2001. In this moment, I live with anxiety on how the future will unfold, but also with hope that as a community of strangers we will find unity and the path forward.