2002-09-11
One year later, posted at 6:58 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com All the time, I get hits on this diary directly to my entry on Septembe 12. It somehow got categorized in some database as, "A high school English teacher finds herself confronted with a multitude of issues surrounding 9-11."Yes, it said herself. I can understand if you don't want to read the journal, but doesn't the little man in the top left-hand corner tip it off?
The reality of it being the one year anniversary of September 11 did not hit me until this morning. Up until that point, I was looking at the date with more than a little bit of nonchalance - I certainly wasn't thinking that it was just another date, but the profoundness of it didn't strike me. I guess I've been too caught up in the new year, or something, but the reality of the year anniversary of 9/11 was looming and I was okay with it. I'd done my grieving, I had thought. The fact that the TV hasn't been on in this house since Sunday probably contributed to my complacent attitude.
This morning, though, it hit me again. Wham! On the way to the gym at 5:17am, they were replaying audio clips from around a year ago - Rudolph Giulani, David Letterman (who put it more eloquently than anyone else, as far as I'm concerned), even George W. Bush. I was once again brought back to a year ago, and once again was shrouded in a cloud of hazy grief. My eyes were welling up on the way to the gym and I wasn't even hydrated yet.
Once I got to school, I was feeling even more contemplative. I decided to restructure my day's lesson plans for some journaling time for my students. After all, if they don't do it in their English class, then where are they going to do it?
The day started off with 25 minutes of watching the Sinise film version of Of Mice and Men, and then a brief discussion about it. Then there was the first SSR session - a full 30 minutes. The last 20 or 30 minutes (depending on how my timing was) was devoted to journaling. I shared with my class that journaling helps me figure things out for myself, that I looked over my journal entry for last year, and wanted to give them a chance to put words and thoughts to paper. We'll share tomorrow.
I journaled right along with them, and one of the main things I seemed to focus on in my writing was how glad I was that we were in school today. Perhaps it was because I was worried that the students would be writing about how they wanted the day off, or something, but I'm glad we're in school. I remember being profoundly uplifted on September 12, from going to school and seeing the world at work again after hours upon hours of watching the television in a depressed glaze. This was a community tragedy, and the community banded together to get through it.
By the same token, I was very glad to be in school today, to continue to demonstrate the thriving of the community. Eventually the day can be a National Holiday, if we decide that this is the best way to honor everyone. But right now, I'm glad we're still going in. It'll help us remember better. For example, I know that Pearl Harbor Day is on December 7, but I think I know more because a friend has a birthday on that date than because of the holiday. I don't want that to happen to 9/11 (though this would be admittedly a lot tougher, since we've come to refer to it by its date).