Normal Not Normal Anymore

By Cindy Reitzi

In times of crisis, our instinct is to gather in circles around the fire, to witness and share common stories.
- Playwright Paula Vogel

On September 11 and the weeks afterward, the U.S. wept. And the world, it seemed, wept with us and offered solace, support, and symbolism. Just as Americans rose to the task and helped, the world pitched in as well. For a short moment, we put aside the usual animosities and acted like a global village.

Out of an unthinkable act comes unexpected aid: Cuba’s Fidel Castro lends support. Bangladesh opens a small, generous hand to the U.S.: the mouse pulling a thorn from the lion’s paw. It is a great comfort; there are people in the world who don’t hate Americans. Terrorism has no borders, no nationality or religion (the KKK is a terrorist group just as al-Qaida is). The world condemns the bombing of the World Trade Center. Just as JFK once said in solidarity, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” so the world said, “I am a New Yorker.”

For one brief flicker, I imagine an opportunity to be a true United Nation of the world, united, in our condemnation of terrorism, but sobered that we need to be more ‘international’ in our thinking. The moment dissipates. We go to war.

I have contradictory thoughts and emotions: get bin Laden the Terrorist, whatever it takes. Yet, reeling from grief and growing anger, I still wonder: what breeds the kind of desperate hatred that transforms passenger planes into suicide missiles? What political, economic, military environments and mindsets spawn such a breathless, murderous lack of ethics?

In the meantime, the full range of reactions on the home front: fundraisers across the nation for the survivors, vehement, fearful debate over the pledge of allegiance in the schools vs. genuine patriotism, bills to curtail civil liberties, jittery nationalism, anthrax scares: a biotoxin kit in my school mailbox with instructions on how to open my mail.

It was a percussive flashpoint in time. It will be the question this generation asks, as mine did: Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Martin Luther King? Where were you when the planes hit the towers?

In ‘real’ time, I was driving to school when I heard the news on the radio. I arrived at school tearful, to the sound of TVs on all over school. In the library, teachers and students watched the repeated replay of the fireballs consuming the collapsing towers, imagining the damned and wondering who was saved.

In my classroom, like so many others, we suspend ‘normal’ activities to watch breaking news. The next few days veer between information and therapy; carrying on and rising above. Even though my students are generally tolerant, I worry that my Muslim students could be harassed, so I warn against stereotypical thinking: Muslims are not all terrorists and terrorists are not all Muslims. We discuss other historical examples of religious extremism like the Crusades and the genocide of American Indians.

In the aftermath of tragedy, the writer in me, the English teacher, felt compelled to tell stories of the lost and their survivors. My students and I shared stories of heroism, love, and uncommon friendship, the stuff of moral tales and literature. It was not gossip; it was the need to bear witness, the need for remembrance.

It was hard to imagine going to back to “normal.” Still, teenagers have a way of bringing you back to the immediacy of life. In fifth hour, Judy and Willie sidled up to me.

“How are you doing today, Ms. Reitzi?” they said in that we-want-something tone of voice. We were resuming class presentations after discussing the bombings the day before.

“Can we talk about it again today?” Judy wheedled. (Translation: can we spend another class period in which we don’t have to do presentations?) In an unreal situation, I glimpse a glimmer of humor and normality.

“No dear, we need to get back to work.”

The collage of all these counterpoints and contradictory images, commentary, and thoughts have not yet coalesced into some coherent viewpoint for me. Too many fragmentary pieces, all complex, prevent one consistent view. It’s not like a punctuation mark that ends the sentence and states the case. Period. It’s an ellipsis… to be continued. Always to be continued. With a question mark.

Posted November 20, 2001