9/11 and how America has dishonored it

There is something very unsettling about the fanfair regarding 9/11. I am loathe to use the word ' annoying ' for fear of stepping on too many toes that really should not be stepped on, but truly that is the most accurate term. I am incredibly annoyed by the weight the day has been given, and maybe by writing this I am only adding to it, but I do hope to avoid blatant hypocrisy.

I am from New York, and in September of 2001, I was three years old. But I was forced into school years before my time and was in a "nursery" that was teaching kindergarten level material. I probably would have been ready for first grade the very next year but the school didn't seem to believe that putting a four year old in first grade was a good idea. They were probably right.

I am afraid I have digressed from my point and failed miserably at the art of brevity. The point was: I was three and I was at school.

The children's department of the school was called the Abraham Lincoln school, but the name that stands out in my memory was the one for the adult department: The School of Practical Philosophy. It was wonderful, and after my move to Illinois, I suffered in the public schools. After having been studying Sanskrit, the pitiful suburban school I was subjected to (Central PK and K) couldn't measure, but again, I digress.

My first, most fabulous school was located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I lived in the Upper West, but the commute was fun, when strapped in the kid's seat on the back of my Dad's bike. I also was on friendly terms with the cops perpetually outside the school. Perhaps it seems frivolous to have cops stationed outside a somewhat ritzy private school, but then, I still haven't been specific with the location.

The School of Practical Philosophy was directly across the street from the Mayor's house. Because of that, my mother was reasonably afraid that her daughter would be lost in a second attack.

My mother was one of the few people who made it completely across the island that day. Most people tried to cut through Central Park, but those streets were some of the first streets to be barricaded. My mother, however, had a depressingly low opinion of humanity and counted on the cops to be horrifically racist.

She was right about the cops, unfortunately,  and she drove straight through Harlem without meeting any resistance. A mostly black neighborhood to this day, Harlem was one of the last areas to be secured.

She spent the next stretch of time on the steps to the door of my school with those ever friendly, though understandably tense, police officers. She didn't tell me what had happened, when I exited the building, probably skipping. I was three, how can you explain 9/11 to a three year old?

In the end, she didn't need to. I noticed the increased number of policemen on the block, and she'd forgotten to turn the car radio off.
I'd heard everything by the time we got home, she was too listless to bother with censorship, and too fried to figure out how to explain. She did try to comment on the newscast and I'm sure it helped, but I still find it odd, how easily  I'd understood. Death was never something that I was unaware of, and that served me well that September.

But to 9.11.2014 I must return. And I hope readers believe me when I say that I am not the pompous, uneffected teenager that I may sound when I express my irritation with the pomp and circumstance the day receives. I hate the unending commemoration on the day  precisely because I am effected.

On any given night, I hear helicopter blades and I'm turning, looking for the source of the sound. Tonight, on this gruesome anniversary,  my mother and I heard at least two. Immediately, we were looking, analyzing. As I type, my mother is calling the police. Her voice is scared, dark eyes darting here and there. These furtive movements are not characteristic of my mother.

The fear I myself feel at this present moment isn't reflective of even my usually present paranoia. It's an entirely different beast, and I know that I won't relax until the helicopters are gone.

I doubt these fears would be quite so pressing if I hadn't spent the day thinking of New York and planes, and I doubt that I'm the only Manhattanite who feels that way. In fact, I'm certain I'm not.

Every year, on this day, I make my mother drink copious amounts of tea, because she couldn't forget if she tried, and every year, reminders are force fed down our throats. The only one the so called 'patriotism' surrounding 9/11 hurts, is the people who were there. Not the people who caused it. Not them at all.

Turning 9/11 from a day of quiet mourning to a day of pompous, loud, and angry propaganda is just offensive. Using the death of 3,000 people for propaganda is wrong. Name dropping the day to garner favor (like our dear dear president did last night) is bull. Bull.

Somehow our society has managed to degrade the meaning of the word 'patriot' through its free and frivolous use of it. Now our country is well on the way to degrading the deaths of 3000 people through the same methods.

On the bright side, the helicopters have stopped and finally, my mother is beginning to rest.