Incredulous

Today I begin this post by remembering all the men, women and victims who suffered when the Twin Towers fell in 2001. Importantly, I also remember the dozens of dogs that lost their lives and served humanity. What a race. 

I recall the exact place I was when I was told by a classmate that the towers fell. As I stood in my year seven classroom, baffled by news that meant nothing to me, I was taken by my classmate's understanding of 9/11's apparent significance. As she unraveled the events taking place a whole world away, at thirteen, it was hard for me to process. Determined to make some sense of the terrifying story unfolding, I concluded that even my parents might have something to say about this. 

As a child, in my parents efforts to shield me from the bad stuff in the world, I was given little to no time to partake in sensationalist media analysis available on modern day tv. As a result, we rarely spoke about contemporary politics. In fact, our dinner time discussions usually involved lengthy historical analysis about cultural differences in military strategy and guerrilla warfare, in places that meant nothing to me.

On September 11 however, I remember the excitement I felt at having something big to tell my mum, something that would challenge her sensibilities. I raced home and sat in front of the tv for up to an hour, watching two passenger planes blow the world's tallest buildings to pieces over and over again, with the awe and disbelief of any child seeing something so large engulfed in flames. It wasn't until the time-span between my mum forcing me to go and do my homework, catching glimpses of the events on tv that night, and fifteen years later, discussing 9/11 in politics class, that I realised how big a deal this event meant for capitalism and for America's hegemony, for the Islamic faith and the history of two divergent societies. 

I leave this post with little to say on the events that actually evolved over the course of that fateful morning, day, and the year and decades which have followed. 

I suppose the one thing I can say is that as we look back on difficult and traumatic life events for better or for worse, disbelief will always cast a shadow over the experiences that we cannot understand.

What was once a major event for my child-self, seeing the world's tallest buildings crumbling on tv, is now an event etched in my mind as a political and cultural turning point of the 21st century. Perhaps a different kind of disbelief of an older woman, it is still disbelief none the less.