the way we were

Most of the stuff I've written on this blog so far has been pretty frivolous. Not necessarily because I'm that way, but also because my writing is already shaky enough for those posts, let alone trying to tackle serious subjects.
However, as you probably know, yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, and a lot of the news was dedicated to that fateful day. Many bloggers are reminiscing too, and some of them have written very well about it.
Anyway, I didn't really think about all of this yesterday, in part because that day, though clearly discussed in the media here, hasn't been the focal point of discussions around town as much as before. But on the bus back from work I finished the extraordinary book by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, about a small boy living in New York who goes looking for the solution to a mystery left by his dad, who died in the attacks. The writing is funny and inventive (like the little boy himself) and never grating, which can happen when it comes to young "hip" writers. And most importantly it made me realize that to me the real story of 9/11 wasn't about all of the politics and stuff that came afterward, but simply about thousands of heartbreaking (and sometimes miraculous) personal stories, iilustrating the connections that people build with others while going through their lives. When I got home I pulled out my copy of Here is New York, an incredible book of amateur 9/11 photographs and browsed some of the pictures, reminiscing about my time in the great city of NY. Though we can't turn back the clocks of tim and go back to those relative carefree days, I hope there are still enough people that will remember some of the good that came out of that day: courage, solidarity, friendship and a common bond. Please set aside discussions about war and terrorism to another day, because Sept 11 is about the people that were there, through their stories, pictures, and our memories.