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September 10, 2001.

It is a brilliant sunny day with a deep blue autumn sky; there are cotton ball clouds dotting its expanse.  We wake with hope in our hearts and the ever-present list of things that need to be done beating a drum refrain in our minds.  We attend to our morning ablutions; we drink coffee or juice or tea and eat oatmeal or eggs or toast and we grab a sweater, exiting our threshold feeling safe and ready for a new day.

We go to work, or school, or to watch our children at the playground, secure in so many things.  Secure that we live in the greatest country in the world.  Secure in the faith that our economy is the strongest in the world.  Secure in the knowledge that our “melting pot” has created a country rich in human resources.  Secure in the knowledge that our God blesses us and wants us to be prosperous.

We are secure that our homes are gaining equity, and we use this equity to produce even more:  second homes, cars, large screen TVs.  We mortgage our houses to pay for our children’s educations—we are secure that there will always be more to pay off our loans.  We are living in the dreamland of everpresent more, and we are grateful for it.

We are secure in the “American Dream,” that if we only work hard enough and obey the rules, we will be rewarded.  That people who are poor or uneducated could change their lot with a dose of hard work and education.  We are proud of our own stories of how we built our own lives and are building our own futures and contributing to the future of our children and our vast, beautiful, vibrant, cacophonous country.

And then, within twenty-four hours, everything changed.  Our security was shattered.  For a few days we banded together in our mutual pain and fear—reached out for one another for reassurance of our basic beliefs.  And even from strangers we found many open hearts and loving gestures in those days.  And a glimmer of security—“at a basic level, human beings are good at heart,” is reestablished.

And the television screens kept repeating that horrible moment the plane hit, and the smoke and clouds of dust; the office papers scattering, the people shouting, the ever-present refrain of “oh my god, oh my god” spoken by those who stood by in the streets, dazed and fearful and not knowing to whom to turn.

And we circled our wagons and held on to our security the best we could.  We hugged our children and kissed our partners and donated blood and money and a tearful ear to someone crying.  We sucked in our fears and went back to work, or school, or the playground.  And what once was an open heart for a stranger turned to suspicion—will this stranger be the one who takes down another airplane?  Will this stranger steal what little is left of our hard-won American life?

And little by little, strangers were not bound to us by our common humanity, but were suddenly potential enemies.  Seated on an airplane—why does that man with brown skin have no luggage?  Seated on a park bench—why is that backpack without an owner?  Seated in the diner—are those people speaking Spanish hurting our economy by earning their money illegally?

And then war, and death, and politics and life took over for a while.  The yearly anniversary was noted, and given its solemn due.  Debates were made concerning the towers’ replacement.  People cared about the outcome.  The Towers symbolized the America we thought we knew.  The 9/11 attacks brought us to our knees in a way we never imagined.  All of our securities, known and unknown, became dust in the instant that the towers and their singular, beautiful, never-to-be-replaced human occupants were destroyed.

And then economic downfall.  Many of us lost our jobs, or are hanging on to our jobs by working the duties of two people who have been laid off, along with our own duties.  So many of us have used what savings we had to keep our families safe, or our children in school, or our parents in health care.  There is no security now.  There is no feeling of economic well being, or faith that if one works hard and obeys the rules, all will be well. 

The rules have changed, but we have no idea what the new ones are.

In response to Cartouche’s question, and  to the questions of my European friends who ask “what has happened to you folks in the US?” and my friend from the UK, who said to me today, “things look really scary for you guys right now.”

copyright 2010 voicegal