 | 11 Sep 06 |
Five years ago I was coming downstairs early in the morning to get my kids off to school. My husband was sitting on the couch watching the morning news shows, which was our usual routine in the mornings. He would go upstairs to finish getting ready for work about the time I headed downstairs.
That morning he looked at me with shock and told me two planes had hit the twin towers in New York.
And that quickly, everything changed. I saw a world where evil killed innocents and my three sons might go to war. My heart broke for each person we lost that day and the sorrow their loved ones would endure.
Now to move this to books. In the world of publishing, a big debate erupted. Will fiction change? Become more serious? More introspective? Have deeper themes? Will we search for answers in our fiction?
My answer…
Yes, fiction changed but not in the way some expected. In a world gone dark, many needed light. Maybe they needed a laugh, so humor and fun soared in fiction. Or they needed to visit a world where justice happened in four hundred pages, so mystery and suspense thrived. Some needed fantasy, and paranormal blossomed.
Escapism some would sneer.
I heard a male anchor of one of those entertainment/news show this morning bemoaning the shallowness of the U.S. these days. On many levels I agree with him (uh, never mind that he makes his living off this very shallowness). I don’t understand the world fascination with Paris Hilton for instance, but whatever. But I think that overly serious TV personality is missing the point. In times where we feel so out of control, entertainment gives us a break.
And maybe it helps us heal just a little bit. A book where the murderer is caught allows us remember that justice does happen. A book that makes us laugh reminds us the life holds joy along with sorrow. I vividly remember how utterly powerless I felt on 9/11; in books we reclaim some of that power. Sure, it may be an illusion, but didn’t we learn on 9/11 that many things are an illusion? Like our sense of safety? The point of entertainment is that it stirs our imagination and hope. Imagination and hope are the essence of our souls, the force that drives us to believe and create. We may create fictional worlds to entertain, or we may build soaring towers—but either way, it takes a soul brimming with imagination and hope to accomplish those things.
Tell me, where were you when you first learned of the disaster in 9/11, and how do you think it changed, or didn’t change, entertainment?
Award winning author, Jennifer Lyon, always wanted to be a witch. Since her witch-powers never materialized, she went onto Plan B and now she creates magic in her books. In her new series, the author of the acclaimed Samantha Shaw Mystery Series (written as Jennifer Apodaca) introduces the Witch Hunters, legendary men who must overcome a curse to team up with witches and fight evil.
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That was the first time in my life that I felt real fear. I did not fear for me, but for my son. He was just a few months old, and I remember I called my husband and said: “Bad timing to having a baby… we don’t know what will happen with the world now”.
I was expecting something like WWIII, bombs, and the end of the world as we know it.
I just could think about Jesus’ words at Matthew 24:19: Woe to the pregnant women and those suckling a baby in those days!
http://rvincoletto.multiply.com/journal/item/211
by Renata September 11th, 2006 at 7:36 amI remember the very surreal fog that enveloped me when my morning man (DJ) called to ask me what to do. It was hard for me to connect with the reality of the situation (not a good thing) and I miscalulated the disasterous effects the collision of two planes into two buildings in one town would have on an entire nation. I had thought we were smarter and more diverse than I discovered. I learned we were as strong and resiliant as I’d always believed.
Jen, both your words and Renata’s rang true with me. My grandson had been born just a month earlier and I’ve long worried about the future of our young at the hands of the old morons who will send them to war. After having watching Apocalypse Now back in the 80s I swore I’d never have another child (which was easy when you consider I had a daughter in middle school at the time.) 9-11 was just another confirmation of how far the hands and minds of hatred will go.
by Cele September 11th, 2006 at 8:19 amRenata, thanks for sharing. I’m sure you held your baby closer.
Cele, you couldn’t have known the scope of things that morning of 9/11. My husband grasped the situation faster than I did. I just kept trying to make it into a terrible accident while he KNEW immediately what had happend.
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 8:30 amJen, my situation was very similar to yours. I’m coming down the stairs and my husband looks up at me and says, “The Twin Towers have collapsed.” My response was, “One of the towers?” When he told me BOTH towers, my response was, “That’s not possible.”
During the days following 9/11, I never once feared for my own safety. I felt that the attack was over, and due to the element of surprise, it probably could never be duplicated again. Fear came later, much later.
by Carol Davis Luce September 11th, 2006 at 9:58 amI was in Germany, my husband was deployed to Italy, and I’d just gotten back the previous evening from visiting him (a very long train ride). I was on base, meeting a friend for coffee. We’d finished and were headed out. We saw people gathered around the television in the coffee shop, but we didn’t stop to see what it was about. She went home, I went to the grocery store.
That’s when I heard about the planes crashing into the towers (they hadn’t come down yet). It was around 2:30 in the afternoon, I think. Now here’s the part where I’ve talked to non-military friends and they all say they had no idea what had happened. But the military knew. A man and I stopped to listen to the speakers in one area of the grocery store and we looked at each other and said “Osama bin Laden. We need to turn Afghanistan into a parking lot right f-ing now.” Not the nicest response, I know, but it was the heat of the moment. We’d had the embasssy in Kenya and the USS Cole, so we knew who wanted to do this kind of thing to us.
I barely made it off the base before it went into Delta (locked down tight, no traffic on or off). I was getting phone calls left and right, I couldn’t reach my husband for days, and I spent the next few days locked up in my house in a tiny German village watching CNN. My mother also lived in Germany, about 60 miles away (she worked at a different base) and we spent a lot of time on the phone together. My dad was working in Bosnia, which had it’s own set of troubles with Muslim extremists.
But I have to say that the Germans were wonderful. They were shocked and horrified, and they trekked in droves to the front gates of the base and left flowers, candles, letters, cards. It was amazing. Their police assisted our military police at the gates; the lines to get on base got so long that it took well over an hour to get on. They were scary days indeed.
There was speculation in the papers about the nuclear power plants, there was a report (most likely false) of a small commuter plane ignoring the tower and flying toward a reactor, and there were of course reports of shadowy people lurking around the bases. In Heidelberg, a military doctor went missing. That scared people for a while, but it turns out he went AWOL to be with his mistress (left a sobbing wife and two children who thought he’d been abducted). And then there were the Americans arrested for planning, yes planning, a bombing on one of the bases. They were caught with the chemicals and plans and everything.
Throughout all of this, though, I was the optimist. I never thought the world was ending. Others I knew did, but I told them we’d be talking about it 5 or ten years later and looking back on it as the moment that changed America. I’m glad I was right and they were wrong. It wasn’t prescience on my part, simply a will to believe we would be all right in the end.
Sorry this was so long, but the topic got me going.
by Lynn Raye Harris September 11th, 2006 at 10:40 amCarol, it’s hard to take in the scope of something like that, isn’t it? Along the same vein as you, I kept thinking, “But there’s people in there!”
My husband had to fly to New Jersey not long after the 9/11 My youngest son who would have been about 12 was worried. Really really worried. I showed him the channels that carry breaking news, and he checked it several times a day. It seemed to relieve his mind and give him a sense of power over his dad flying. And of course, my husband called everyday. A lot of people thought I was wrong to do that, but I don’t believe in letting fear rule us. Before 9/11 my kids never worried about their dad’s occassional business trips.
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 10:51 amLyn, what a story! I’m glad you posted it. The most endearing part is about the caring of the German people. You reinforced my belief that there are people like that everywhere, and I won’t let that belief ever be destroyed.
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 10:55 amSorry, Lynn, I dropped the last ‘n’ on your name!
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 10:55 amThat morning the phone rang very early. The hubby called to say, “Turn on the news.” Since he’s a cop, this is not out of the ordinary. Sometimes he is on the news broadcast. I asked, “What channel?” He screams, “Any channel,” then apologizes. “Any channel, it’s on all of them.”
I’m slightly bemused as I hang up. What is he up to, that could be on all the channels? I dress and go downstairs, seeing the clock shows I have plenty of time to awake my son for school, not knowing there will be no school today.
I turn on NBC to see the friendly faces of Matt Lauer and Katie Couric. I see the plane hit the tower. I’m confused. How could a pilot be so stupid to not see the Towers and hit them. Suddenly, another plane hits the other tower and all is crystal clear. I go to sit down and miss my chair. I hit the floor instead. Most of that morning is a blur as I wait for whatever is next.
I choose to see the hope amid the despair. The others who helped that morning. Strangers helping strangers. The good we are capable of.
by Amanda September 11th, 2006 at 11:52 amI was in a car starting a drive home to NYC from about 4 hours away. Long day.
As for entertainment…I don’t know if it’s gotten better or worse, deeper or shallower…probably both of the latter.
But as for the “importance” of shallow entertainment, I think you’re right. When we’re faced with overwhelming (in the purest sense of the word) tragedy and helplessness…there’s the grief and shock and anger and rage that are all natural. But there comes a point when you need to wrestle your emotions away from that and live your life. And the emotional palate cleanser of a few hours with non-profound entertainment is sometimes the only way to take yourself from “WTF is wrong with this world, I can’t stop crying” to “Okay, time to get back to the business of living.” Not everyone can go straight from one to the other through sheer force of will.
Also, fiction a world where things make sense, where the good are rewarded and the evil are punished and things happen for a reason. Reality is often brutally random, but in fiction, for the most part, things make sense. We’re a part of this 21st century world where 24/7 cable news and the internet, etc, give us the ability to see the big evils of this world up close and personal, immediately and in far more detail than is probably healthy. We are (practically forced to be, by the media) so much more aware of all the tragedy that happens.
But other than bearing witness, there’s not much most of us can actually DO about terrorism or Iraq or Darfur or bird flu. And whatever power we do have has nothing on the 24/7 access to proof that the world is a violent, senseless, horrible, hateful random place.
I think it makes perfect sense to reach for fiction to balance this out. I think it’s healthy, and I think that on 9/11 and after, millions of people had their shock and grief and impotent rage assuaged by a few hours of escape into fluffy little romance novels and silly little mysteries and mindless sitcoms, and I think that’s a deeply good, noble, important service that that “trash” fulfilled.
We have plenty of weighty, deep, profund sh!t going on in real life, and there is plenty of weighty, thoughtful, deep entertainment that does the work of processing the impact of 9/11 (many aspects of the superb but relentlessly grim new Battlestar Galactica come to mind) . But sometimes you need something simpler, funnier, fluffier or just plain *other* than the stark reality of real life.
Fiction ( even cheesy, superficial, fluffy, genre fiction, especially genre fiction) gets us out of our own messy heads and reminds us that sometimes love and right does triumph, and people get what they deserve, and we have power over our own fates. Reality does enough to show us the opposite. And in an age when we have constant, instant access more proof of the brutal effects of fate and man’s inhumanity to man then we could ever hope to process…fiction helps remind us that sometimes the world does make sense.
And psychically, psychologically, and in our souls, sometimes we need that balance. Sometimes, we need that vicarious joy and justice and closure and sense, even more so when we’ve got so much vicarious pain and loss and confusion.
by romblogreader September 11th, 2006 at 12:20 pmI was at work entering police reports into the computer (I’m a secretary for a suburban Pgh. PD) when one of the officer’s wives called and told me to turn on the TV. I went out to the squad room, where one of the guys already had the TV on. At first we just thought it was an accident–until the second plane hit.
Then when Flight 93 went down, only an hour’s drive from here, we went into emergency mode. At the time no one knew the full story of the heroes on that plane. We figured if terrorists were bringing planes down in the middle of nowhere, everyone was at risk. We locked down the building and instituted some security measures, like taking the keys out of the police cars. The guys always left the keys in the cars for convenience–but not any more. We were warned about a plot to use emergency vehicles as bombs.
What made the biggest impression on me that day, were the people who wanted to help. Even in our township, we had numerous calls from residents who volunteered to help if anything happened here.
by Joyce Tremel September 11th, 2006 at 12:35 pmI blogged on this on my personal blog, too. It was so normal. There was NOTHING different about that day, nothing, until the world turned upside down, and could never be righted.
I watched the television ALL day. I alternated between that and emailing and IMing friends, calling people I knew, and crying.
I’ll never forget it.
by Natalie September 11th, 2006 at 12:40 pmAmanda, hope is an amazingly resilient. I imagine part of you knew it had to be bad to rattle your husband since his job is police work.
Romblogreader, you made great points on the value of getting hope or joy from entertaiment when the world feels out of control.
Joyce, being so close to where Flight 93 went down gives you a unique perspective. Thanks for sharing.
Natalie, I’ll go look at your blog. Contact with friends and loved ones was so very important that day.
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 2:47 pmI was getting the kids up for school and my daughter’s boyfriend at the time called and told us to turn on the television. We all sat there on the edge of the bed watching in shock and horror. That entire week is a blur to me, and sitting here thinking about it now brings me to tears. It also has reminded me how proud I am to be an American.
by Karin September 11th, 2006 at 2:50 pmAh Karin, I was proud of American too. But what I was, and am, most proud of are all the ordinary people who stepped up to be heroes. That is something that doesn’t belong to a county but to humanity.
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 2:55 pmI remember the day because it began with me looking at the Twin Towers from my apartment window before heading out and ended with seeing the smoke billowing in it’s place. I knew one person who didn’t come home and that makes me sad. But I am grateful that my missing nephew was found, safe from harm. What I remember is the uncertainity of what was happening but the unity and spirit of all the people who came together. 9/11 showed America at it’s best.
As for media, I don’t watch as much news as I use to..it’s been taken up by reading.
by Dru Ann September 11th, 2006 at 5:01 pmDru Ann, how surreal that you could see the twin towers from you apartment building. I’m so sorry about the person you lost, but glad your newphew turned up safe.
by Jen September 11th, 2006 at 5:38 pmI turned on the news because that’s what we used to do in the morning while getting ready for work. One building had been hit. We thought for sure it was an accident . . . then the other building was hit. Dan and I were glued to the television. I didn’t want to take the kids to school, but I did and was glad that I did because I think it helped them have normalcy (the school had a schoolwide age-appropriate assembly to talk about what happened and pray.)
I also had a young son at the time who was 4 months old. I thought about family and how anything could happen at any time to anyone I loved. Tragedy brings people closer and makes us realize what’s really important in our lives. Family and the every-day, quiet happiness is what really matters.
Jen, I loved your line: “it takes a soul brimming with imagination and hope to accomplish those things.” That’s what makes America work. We are innovative, we persevere, we survive. It’s who we are. Technology exists because someone imagined it. Someone asked “what if . . . ” From the wheel to the automobile to the airplane to computers, everything started because of a need and someone’s imagination.
by Allison September 11th, 2006 at 9:37 pmAllison, I sent my kids to school too. My oldest son drove, so I told him he had my permission to leave with his brother that was also in high school if he needed too. Plus at that age (high school and middle school) being with their friends is good for them.
Being a parent in a time like 9/11 is a singular challenge.
Thanks for liking the line
by Jen September 12th, 2006 at 6:58 amJen,
I loved reading everyone’s stories and know that we’ll all be sharing them for the rest of our lives. What really changed for me that morning was the (I suppose in retrospect) silly notion that we were somehow removed from the hideous terrorism that stalked the rest of the world.
Amy Fetzer called me that morning from back east and told me to turn on the television-since she knows I never turn it on during the day. I tuned in just in time to watch the second plane hit. And just thinking about it brings back the surreal feel to that day.
For the next week, my family and I kept the TV on almost around the clock. It was almost as if we felt as though we’d be betraying everyone in NYC if we turned it off. The feeling of helplessness was overwhelming.
But as I watched American flags popping up all over my town, saw kids scrawling GO USA on walls in chalk and saw hundreds of people lining up to donate blood and clothes and their time, I realized that no terrorist could ever really sink us. As a country, we may fight amongst ourselves–but when we’re attacked by an outsider, we only get stronger………
by Maureen September 13th, 2006 at 5:30 pmMaureen, I’ve never seen this articulated before, “It was almost as if we felt as though we’d be betraying everyone in NYC if we turned it off.” That was it! It was our only way of “being there” at least in spirit. I am so glad you said that.
All these stories have been wonderful and amazing. Thank you all for sharing.
by Jen September 14th, 2006 at 6:49 am