9/11

This evening, I met a girl (or should I say woman? She’s 31, but I cannot seem to perceive her as being much older than me) from Scotland. She’s visiting Fluf this weekend for a BiFest (bisexual festival) which he is helping to host in Brighton. As she told me about her experiences in the States, she told me she was actually trying to get back to Scotland on the day of 9/11. She was visiting a friend near Lake Huron and had to get a bus back to NYC for her flight out, but obviously, because of the pandemonium that erupted that day, no buses were going into the city. She made it as far as New Jersey I think, and then had to wait for quite a while to get into the city and catch a plane.

Her family was frantic, knowing she was near or perhaps even in New York at that time, but she says she was totally unconcerned. It wasn’t that she didn’t care or wasn’t affected by the horror of what was happening to our country; it was just so surreal, it didn’t seem like it could be happening. The way she told the story, it seems as though she didn’t really feel affected by what was happening because 1) it wasn’t her country, 2) it was America, so surely we could handle it, and 3) if she were to fully psychologically realize the horror of the attack, she may not have been able to function capably enough to get home.

It makes me wonder how I would react if something catastrophic were to happen while I were here. What if the Queen were to die during my remaining five months over here? Would the whole country go into mourning and I just wouldn’t care? Or what if something terrible happened in America? How would I feel? New York City was far enough away from me on 9/11 that I hardly felt affected, despite knowing that it was my own country being attacked, that people were dying. People die on the news every day; seeing bodies falling from a burning building wasn’t anything particularly stunning. Terrorists, war, uncertainty as to what would happen next--those were what affected me more. Now, I’m in an entirely different country, I don’t know how I would feel if something were to happen in my homeland. Perhaps I would feel more patriotic. After all, I didn’t become a proud Pittsburgher until I went away to school in Rochester, New York. How strange, that moving away from your home can make you more loyal to it.