By Charlotte K. Jarmy
September carries more than its share of memorable moments, both personal and of wider significance. I’m writing this column on Sept. 11, but you the reader will see it about two weeks later. Flashbacks, dramatic pictures, memories all play their role in making 9/11 a date to carry us back to impossible emotions. Why impossible? Because our language cannot capture emotions that are flying in every direction. All the writers, politicians, actors and ordinary people struggled to grasp that impossible period. Proof came in a relentless battering our minds absorbed as our country tried to make that leap to the past. “Where were you on that awful day?” At our house the phone rang, and my son said, “Turn on your TV.”
Even now, my body is reacting to my words: tightened muscles, shallow breathing, hands rolling into fists, pulse racing. I hurt, but I am thinking of many ways to judge the onslaught. Recently a review of “Reading Like a Writer” praised its author for her emphasis on words rather than content as the real genius in her work. To quote that author, Francine Prose, “The excellence of writing depends not on its content, but on its language and form.”
Frankly, though I pored over many of the quite literary comments on what has become one of the most meaningful dates in American history, it’s not the words but the images they evoke that remain in my mind: the sight of the falling towers, New Yorkers running from the hellish scenes, bodies hurtling down from the towers. I know from sad experience that those images are forever imprinted on the brain.
Wiped out now is another date, Sept. 5, the date of my first marriage, a wonderful memory full of impassioned visions of the future. Young faces mirrored the most difficult word in our language to define: love. Another date that struggles to recapture its position in memory: the day that JFK died. The images stay; the number is gone.
I no longer remember the date that Franklin D. Roosevelt died. Yet, the image remains of a train full of sleepy people rocking back and forth in the subway car, all devoid of the horror I felt because I had just heard the news. It is the president’s rolling, somber tones on the radio that informed the nation of the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor that I remember the most.
How strange it is that I can recall even happy events with their still fresh images, but the dates often elude me. Birthdays of family and friends must be written down and posted as a reminder. What could be the reason that happy events sometimes fade into our overloaded brains, but traumatic events need little help? June 13 pops out unasked for. Television images of O.J. Simpson’s white car speeding down a Los Angeles freeway that day still resonate. Why? Perhaps it is because it was then that my brother’s carotid artery surgery occurred. More likely, it was my son’s tragic death that remains the indelible image of that day.
Certainly, personal reasons help to recall specific dates. But for most Americans, Sept. 11 stands out as a turning point in our history. It has become more difficult to smell the roses. We seem to be moving into a more worrisome future. I believe we need to use that date to find a thoughtful and compelling reason for our existence: like joy in being alive, being safe, being with loved ones - at least in the moment.
If there is ever an 11th commandment, it must be Thou shalt at least TRY to care about your fellow human beings.
Charlotte Kaye Jarmy
is a Los Altos resident and longtime contributor
to the Town Crier.
