Taking a Moment
By Therese Walsh | September 11, 2007 |
It’s 9/11.
I vividly recall seeing one of the towers collapse live on CNN this day in 2001. I remember sinking to my knees in shock and horror.
“I can’t believe what just happened,” I said.
My daughter came up behind me. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”
My hand was over my mouth. I told her the truth: “A lot of people just died.”
I’m not a native of New York City. I can’t imagine what someone who lives in the city—who had a loved one die or was running from debris or just watching terrified from the periphery—felt that day or how they’ve managed to cope in the aftermath. I guess most of them did what we all have to when life tuns out harsher than we could’ve dreamed: develop a thicker skin and try to move on.
Even though I’m not a native of NYC, I am a New York state resident. I remember the most ominous looking sky the day after the attacks, with positively stark, gray, fat clouds rolling overhead. I remember thinking they were overfilled with remnants of the terrible day-pieces of city and other people’s lives descending on my hometown like a traveling cemetery, demanding that all of us pay our respects. They affected me, those clouds and the unnatural storm that preceded them. They made me anxious, and they made me hear the ticking of the clock more loudly than ever before. I began taking my dreams a lot more seriously. I looked at the faded fortune cookie slip I’d kept for years, the one that said, You are a lover of words. Someday you will write a book, and I thought, “Someday is now.”
Yes, the day became the catalyst for something good in my life–I got serious about pursuing my dreams on a different level. But I also respect the deeper message of that day and the death-shroud cloud: It’s so important to squeeze as much as we can from the hours.
I was asked once to write an essay about art—about why art is important following loss. What I wrote seems to fit this day, so here it is:
Life is not always kind to us individually, or to our families, our towns, our country or our world. But it’s important not to let cheerlessness grow within us uncountered, because it can choke out hope. Art is a great remedy for this kind of bewildered, lost feeling, because when we’re in the midst of art we’re reminded that life has purpose and that purpose is often joyful. It doesn’t matter if you’re creating art or admiring someone else’s, or whether the art itself appears in a deft brushstroke or a poignant melody or an apt phrase or a lingering touch between two dancers. What matters is art’s ability to take us outside of our own experience for a while to remind us that there is meaning beyond despair. Art is able to do this like nothing else because it stems from passion, and passion is–at least for me–nearly the very opposite of hopelessness.
I guess this is what motivated me to write after 9/11 and what brings me back to my wip, regardless of what might be happening around me. Passion. Hope. Find it, then use it well and use it often.
Write on, all.
Photo Credit: Flickr, by Dragonfly
Therese Walsh (she/her) co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006 and is the site’s editorial director. She was the editor of WU’s only book, Author in Progress, and runs the Writer Unboxed UnConference.
Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, received starred reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot.
Learn more about Therese on her website, and sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to hear about any new projects.
Like many others I had trouble writing for a while after 9/11/01. At the time I was working on the lightest, frothiest of my Regency romances. It just felt wrong to work on it when such horrible things were going on. Then I realized that that was the sort of book I was reaching for and that writing this silly, fun book was my own personal act of defiance against the darkness.
Some time after that book came out I got a letter from a reader. She wrote that she was a young widow, that she still missed her husband after a year but books like mine helped her escape her troubles for a while.
There’s no greater vindication for what we do.
Thanks for sharing that, Elena. And what a kind woman to share that with you, too.
Wow, Elena. Just….wow.
what i remember most about 9/11 is what a beautiful day it was. i was in my garden that morning, checking out what was blooming that day. was it my teddy bear sunflowers, poofy little globes of gold? Or my rudbeckias dancing in the slight breeze, their yellow petals and plump brown faces brighter than any other day? i heard the bees hum as they bobbed from flower to flower. i didn’t know of the crash until my sister called me from manhattan. then the second plane crashed (and we then knew what it meant) and after we hung up, i wasn’t able to make contact with her again for three days. i went back outside into my garden, and still the sun was brillant, the flowers gently shaking with the airflow. All the little critters of the garden were still busy with their daily routine. but i knew that not too far away, there was smoke and fire, and people running and screaming in fear and pain, and thousands of phone calls were being made from people leaving their last words, only thinking of gifting their loved ones with precious words of peace to get them through the days ahead. i was born in nyc and though i love the countryside, that city is still in my blood. and i cried for a week. for those that suffered and died, and for what it meant for our future.