9/11

I picked up a book at the library yesterday (as if I needed more to read) called "The Unthinkable." It's about how humans react in major disasters. Interestingly, as happens when I visit the library, I was calmed from daily stresses by reading the first few pages of this book in the presence of hundreds of books (I also picked up a Nick Hornby book about reading...)

Today is the 13th anniversary of 9/11/2001. I still remember where I was when I learned - the quiet and innocent moments that preceded my knowledge gain and the confused, tarnished, emotional moments that subsequently followed.

But I couldn't figure out if I should write anything in reflection, 13 years later, as I have in previous years. Then I read chapter 1 of this book and decided I needed to note a relevant earmark. The first chapter, "Delay" focuses on a women who survived the '93 World Trade Center Bombings and the attacks in 2001 (by the way, "attack" just doesn't seem enough of a word for that day). The following description stood out - a moment when she made it out of Tower 1 but ended up in the rumble of the buildings' collapses:

"She moved and stumbled over some debris, falling on top of someone else. It turned out to be a police officer. He was screaming that his eyes were burning. And at the same time, he was telling her, 'Don't worry, don't worry! We're going to get out of here.' Zedano could see his hands shaking. But she never saw his face.

By then, her anger had vanished again. She got very quiet. It helped to have a police officer there, even though he was hurt. Then she heard a voice: 'I found a way out. Everybody, hold hands.' And that's what they did."

The moment I read "Everybody, hold hands." My stomach rose to my throat. The image, although simple, not only was really but FELT real. It felt like a description of how I felt following the day. Confused, yet comforted by those around me grappling with similar struggles and emotions- and metaphorically, so many of us joining hands to get through it.

Cliche, but that's how this writing struck me at this moment. And I wanted to note it first because of the anniversary but second because of how vivid that day and those feelings still are. 

I know we remark about Pearl Harbor and D-Day; we discuss important dates and have moments of recognition for those who fell, or for the history of that moment. But I feel like we do so much more every 9/11, and I wonder of there can ever be an anniversary where we don't call for moments of silence and see  tributes across all media. 

Likely, that day will come - maybe when less people who were there are gone. But I don't know. This event feels so different, and the feeling so enduring - that I literally cannot imagine a day where it is a fleeting, 3 minute news story of rememberance. 

If anything, because every 9/11, I do feel a moment when we're holding hands again - for the moments we remember where we were, where we see how others are feeling, when we hear the names of victims or images of survivors. Images of rubble and waves of ash - the last moments of tall buildings, crumbling like a Jenga set.

That hand holding matters. And maybe that's how we will also move on, but with the small bits of our hearts chipped and clinging to the memory.

To books that serve as reminders,

~MJ

Ten Books

“10 books that have stayed with you in some way.”
This was a "challenge" on Facebook but I was never challenged;-) So, I decided I would put my 10 books here! The rule, too, is that we can't think to hard about it, so here goes:

1. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a  Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
3. What is the What by Dave Eggers
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry
5. Harry Potter (can't pick just one!) by JK Rowling
6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
7. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
8. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
9. Whatever It Takes by Paul Tough
10. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee


According to some FB data gatherers, the top 20 books are here. I think most of mine are in the top 25. If they're not in the top 100 - at least I read them :-)

To books,

~MJ

The Six Books of Summer

Summer began with "The Steady Running of the Hour." Although I was ultimately disappointed by the ending, there were incredible passages throughout.

"It had taken a long time to separate her life from her death so that I could think of the first without having to think of the second. Finally I learned to let the small and simple memories float to the surface, as they did sometimes, and I no longer tried to push them down." -pp. 30
"Ashley looks at the tablecloth and shakes his head. He says that for one thing, lasting comfort becomes no comfort at all. All things in the world are perceptible only by contrast. For just as there is not heat without cold nor light without the darkness, it is climbing that throws all of Ashley's life into into sharp relief. It is climbing that makes one feel. It is the driving mountain cold that makes the fire in an alpine hut so delicious; it is the sore and cramped muscles that transform an ordinary hot bath into a sensory revelation; it is the hours of grueling ascent that make a supper of sardines and biscuits and jam so much better than a thousand dinners at the Criterion.
And it is impossible to live without hardship. The hardship of daily trifles, Ashley explains, ever accumulating and impossible to ignore, is so much meaner than pain or cold or fatigue. These annoyances make one weak and petty and shallow, just as greater struggles make one brave and wise." - pp. 81

And it continued with another amazing read by Khaled Hosseini - who has yet to disappoint me (blog here).

"But there was no forgetting. Pari hovered, unbidden, at the edge of Abdullah's vision everywhere she went. She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent at the house, silences that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell. Some nights he dreamed that he was in the desert again, alone, surrounded by mountains, and in the distance a single tiny glint of light flickering on, off, on, off, like a message...And if one day, trekking across some vast open field, despaire should take hold of him, he would stop in his tracks and shut his eyes and he would think of the falcon feather Pari had found in the desert. He would picture the feather coming loose from the bird, up in the clouds, half a mile above the world, twirling and spinning in violent currents, hurled by gusts of blustering wind across miles and miles of deserts and mountains, to finally land, of all places and against all odds, at the foot of that once boulder for his sister to find. It would strike him with wonder, then, and hope, too, that such things happened. And though he would know better, he would take heart, and he would open his eyes, and walk." -pp. 51-52. 

"The Light Between Oceans" captivated me during a long and unexpected layover at Dulles, and got me through some serious cardio at the gym.

"There are still more days to travel in this life. And he knows that the man who makes the journey has been shaped by every day and every person along the way. Scares are just another kind of memory."
"Your family's never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere."
"It seemed his lungs could never be large enough to breath in this much air, his eyes could never see this much space, nor could he hear the full extent of the rolling, roaring ocean. For the briefest moment, he had no edges."

"A Tale for the Time Being" caught me at the right moment in the right bookstore, and carried me through too many days in Las Vegas.

"Or maybe none of these things will happen except in my mind and yours, because, like I told you, together we're making magic, at least for the time being." -pp. 5
"When you beat a drum, you create NOW, when silence becomes a sound so enormous and alive it feels like you're breathing in the clouds and the sky and your heart is the rain and the thunder. Jiko says this is an example of the  time being. Sound and no-sound. Thunder and silence." pp. 238
"In your diary, you quoted old Jiko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did i just dream that? Anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think maybe it's true, even though I don't really like uncertainty. I'd much rather know, but then again, not-knowing keeps all the possibilities open. It keeps all the worlds alive." -pp. 402

And then A.J. Fikry's tale stole my heart.

"No one travels without purpose. Those who are lost wish to be lost."
"Why is any one book different from any other book. They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. we have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again."

More earmarks from that read here...

And I concluded an adventurous summer with "Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail." And it was perfect.

"Thank you, I thought over and over again. Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside of me; for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn't yet know, though I felt somehow already contained within me." 

And of course, this gem. Lots of earmarks related to mom, too, but those will be saved for another day.

And so summer ends.

As quoted in one of the summer reads, Marcel Proust says it best:

"In reality, every reader, while he's reading, is the reader of his own self. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument, which he offers to the reader to permit him  to discern what, within the book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. The reader's recognition in his own self of what the book says is the proof of its truth."

In honor of why we read,

~MJ