As you can see from the dateline, this is another one of those anniversaries. The sad, soulful music on the morning newscasts, the tear-streaked eyes of survivors intoning the names of the dead at the old World Trade Center site. The respectful braying of bagpipes and organs.
I’ve noticed, however, that the media has shied away from actually showing the burning and crumbling towers since the event, except today while I was cross-training on the elliptical machine in my gym I found a station playing back its tape in real time.
I actually saw the second plane hit the tower and seeing it again eight years later I was able to place myself in the context of my office watching the TV as events played out.
I again felt the visceral response of numb disbelief and curiosity watching the towers burn and the surrealistic site of a plane veering in and disappearing behind the first tower and the explosion of flames and debris that emerged as a giant fireball and it was all captured on live TV.
Most interesting are the cameras trained on the towering burning building and the intellectual connection one had to make to appreciate the fact that there were people in those buildings, even if no people were present in the image. It wasn’t until later, when the connection was actually made, that the enormity of the tragedy registered on me.
Just looked like a couple of burning buildings to me, one in which I had a job interview at that exact hour about three weeks before. All the numb, stunned emotion came back to me on the elliptical machine. I finished up my exercise and made a hasty exit before the buildings collapsed.
Was in no mood to see that.
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