So with the 10 year anniversary of September 11th upon us, I thought that it might be time to write down my 9/11 story.
During this time I was living out at our family's ranch and going back to school. A good friend of mine was living with us at the time and we shared my room. I was dating a beautiful young woman that had just started college away from us as well. That is about all the set up to my life at this time.
I used to wake up early and this morning was no different. My mother was in the kitchen cooking something for breakfast that morning. When I entered the front room, I saw the TV with the news on, which was normal for this early in the morning. That was when I saw something strange on the television...
This was early, after the planes had hit, but before anything else really happened. I saw the Twin Towers on fire, tons of smoke, and just that overall feeling on the news when it is a breaking story. I asked "Uh...what is going on here?" to which my mother replied with what knowledge we all had, that some planes had crashed into the towers.
I was immediately intrigued as to how this could happen, let alone to both towers. I quickly realized that it must have been something planned by someone maliciously. It was the only real explanation. Shortly afterward, the first tower fell. That was the moment I knew that this was more than some freak event. This was huge. This was something that was calculated and executed and is not only going to caused many deaths and pains, but completely change the world. It was sickening and beautiful in a weird way.
It did not take long after that for my phone to ring down the hall. This was before I had a cell phone and just kept my landline as long as possible. I ran down the hall to find out it was one of my other good friends. It was not like him to be up this early. He just said "Hey man, have you seen this shit?"
Of course...it was good of him to call. He needed his friends as the world had started changing in front of him. He wanted to make sure we were both up and experiencing this with him. I said yes and he said that there was no way he was going to school today to which I agreed and told him to come over. I got my other buddy up, the one that was sharing my room with me, and told him come out and see what is going on. For the next many hours, we were glued to the TV.
See, I live on the west coast. We don't really know many people back east and the ones that we do were nowhere around NYC, so the TV was our only connection other than the direct human one. This was where it was happening for us.
It took a little bit, but my buddy that had called before called once more and asked if wanted anything to eat. He picked up some McDonald's breakfast sandwiches and finally made it over. Was not long after that when the reports of the 4th plane missing along with the reports of the Pentagon were all coming on.
The second tower collapsed. All we could do was watch and listen to Peter Jennings on the TV. The various camera angles, the sounds, the smoke and debris....was very overwhelming. Never in my life before or since have I felt what I felt on that day. I know it is silly, but looking back the best way to describe what I was feeling was like what Obi Wan felt when the Death Star blew up Alderaan. It was like an entire city crying out, loud and fierce, then nothing.
We speculated on who and how this could have been done. One of my buddies sworn that it was Qaddafi. I just could not even speculate. I assumed some kind of terror attack, but as to whom would do this and why, it was unfathomable to me at the time. I was thinking that is was home grown though at the time.
This lasted all morning. We just sat and talked.
That evening I had to go to work. During this time I was a manager at Pizza Hut. Once getting there we had our TVs on the news, a few customers, but overall not much action all evening. There was one man that I worked with that I want to talk to. He was an old man, one of my part time drivers, and a very patriotic veteran. He was an interesting man who's opinion I greatly respected even though we did not always agree on things. He was quiet and watching with us. Later I found him and asked him what he thought. Like a true gentleman, he did not have much to say. It is amazing to see his emotion through the lack of emotion he had shown, if that makes sense.
The next day I went to school early to hang out a bit and see people. It was a somber, solemn day and most of my classes were cancelled again. We used to all hang out behind the campus theater because there was a large dock there that was a great meeting place. I sat, and talked to many people as they came throughout the day. There were various opinions and thoughts, not all I wanted to hear or had much respect for. A long-time friend came to me and said he needed to talk to someone. We walked a bit away and he was just confused and lost, did not know what to think. Finally he asked me what I thought...
This was really the first time that I had some chance to really digest and reflect on my own thoughts. In doing so, I was the first of my friends or anyone in my group to say that I was amazed and the organization and power people can exert if they feel the need to. I could not believe that someone could believe so deeply in a cause to do such a horrific act, murder thousands of people, and maliciously tear the heart out of a city. I speculated about the will power involved and the pain caused, even thought about the idea of some kind of metric to study emotional pain. The direct human pain was still unknown to me. I had not felt it in that way yet.
We discussed various ideas and thoughts, there were fears and tears abound.
It was not until many months later that I saw something on TV about the event that I really connected to it on a direct level. This was later, once all the videos and whatnot were coming out with more human stories of that day. I connect with stories deeply. Seeing some of those documentaries hit me and for the first time I cried about what happened. I finally saw people directly affected, people that were there, and stories of how that day changed the lives of millions of people in a very real way.
It did not take me long to protest even the idea of going to war. I joined groups in college along with occasionally heading out to a group who would hold peace signed on a busy corner every once a week. I joined a peace protest with a friend where people were reading poetry, or just talking to try to promote the idea of stopping the violence before it started. It was of course futile, but the journey itself is sometimes just as important as the outcome.
At that event one of the professors at the college stepped up to the podium. He talked a bit about himself as a Vietnam war vet, a bit about his experiences, and then took out a letter to read. This was a letter that was sent from a buddy in the war back home just days before he was killed in an unjust war. It was a few pages and by far one of the most emotional things I had ever heard. The crowd were all crying, the teacher was in tears just trying to finish the letter. He knew first hand the results of unjustified violence as a scar on our collective consciousnesses. He knew that the outcome was nothing but more death and the later pain caused by empty revenge. That revenge is what we still have ongoing today.
I don't want to get political anymore. The political events post 9/11 are a story all unto themselves. As for my own fallout, I still have trouble watching the events and thinking about them, but I cannot look away when anything is on about 9/11. It is like seeing someone die, you can't look away but looking just rips you apart from your humanity in a weird way.
That is all I want to say about 9/11 today. This has not very well edited, so there are probably typos and bad sentences abound. I apologize for that, but I just want to finish typing on the subject for tonight. I want to just say that I wish I could hug every living victim of that event. I could not imagine their pain. I want to shake the hand of every volunteer that gave their time, their money, and in some cases their health to try to save anyone left in the rubble. I commend you. This was a dark time for our country, but a strong point for us as human beings.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
This is A Story of a Friend
So for those that have seen, I have been writing about my various friendships lately. The point is to start documenting my adventures and travels in relationship to those that were with me, but from my point of view. Today I have decided that it is time to talk about one person that meant the world to me for some time. She was not a girlfriend, but a best friend during this time...
I used to hang out at the college a lot, in between classes, or just because a lot of my friends were there. I was sometimes seen as a glue that held groups of people together. One friend once looked around and saw a bunch of smiling people, talking and playing games, and called me the Patron Saint of this group, claiming that it was because of my influence that this existed at all. It was a compliment, but an overzealous one.
On a particular set of days I saw someone walking about the college by herself. I noticed her, as you do, but not in any sexually attracted sort of way, more in a sense of how she moved, walked, ignored the world around her and lived in a happy contemplation. Then this day came a long where, while sitting outside and assisting a friend with homework, quietly talking and smoking or whatever we were doing at the time, I saw her walking towards us. She was still wearing that coat that caused her to not care what was going on, but this time she was obviously coming towards us for some kind of engagement. I was thrilled. I had found myself intrigued by her for a few days, so this was a chance to meet a new friend.
There was some awkwardness at first as she was attempting to figure out how to, well, basically how to make friends. Come to find out she had just recently moved there, was young (17) at the time, and did not really know anyone at all. She came from Oregon and had later told me that she was amazed by the Central Valley because she had never seen a land so flat before.
We got to talking and right away we hit it off. We had a lot of the same tastes in music, in reading, and in movies. We talked philosophy, friends, and the world which we grew up. It was like finding your soul mate. We would clash and argue sometimes, but I like to believe that she looked up to me as an old brother. She would ask me questions, not just about the world, but about personal stuff, stuff that a parent should have taught her but didn't. Needless to say she was extremely smart for her age, but lacked some of the normal social common sense and niceties.
Later that first day, I saw her walking around town. I stopped to talk, gave her a ride to where she was living. That was a strange situation on it's own. She was staying with this person all the way across town, the other side of the tracks you might say, payed a shit ton for rent, the woman made her sleep on the couch, and refused to give her a key.
Over the next week is when we really bonded. We argued about the nobility in the action of Socrates, what a songwriter meant when choosing certain words, and which poets are better than others. It was fun, informative, stimulating, and most of, it was all done without a sense of pretentiousness or fuss. It was just good conversation. We stayed up together every day after classes talking. After only a week of knowing her, I went to give her a ride to the place she was staying. When we got there, it was cold and late. I would not leave until I knew she was inside and that night, it was not going to happen.
She banged and banged on the door, kept telling me to leave, she would just stay outside and wait for someone to come home. After awhile I just refused and told her to get in the truck. It was 2 in the morning, cold, and I was not going to let her freeze out there. I told her she is coming to stay at my house tonight, no arguing. She slept on the couch and the next morning we went back to school.
This became the norm. Giving rides and just plain being friends. She introduced me to the music of Bright Eyes, I showed her The Mountain Goats, and we would spend so many nights just talking and listening to music. We taught each other a lot of things.
Then she started falling for this guy from back home. She was going to go back up to see him soon and started asking me those questions about sex. Like I said before, she never seemed to have much in the way of common sense guidance, but a lot of good stories about her father otherwise. I remember this night because of a hilarious tangent our conversation went on when she became confused about a certain term for the woman's anatomy and my descriptions. She thought I was talking about one thing when I was talking about another and it caused some rather weird fears in her for awhile until we finally got on the same page. We laughed about that night and some hilarious imagery associated with it for many nights to come.
Soon, she was kicked out of the housing situation she was in. This caused her to become a squatter. She stayed on my couch most nights, but was always gracious and always kind. She was not a bum or a mooch by any means, but she always needed someone for a place to crash. She was in college with no place to live. All of this caused some tension between us because it got to feeling that maybe she was only my friend for a couch, maybe she only wanted to hang with me because she needed to sleep some place safe. I got frustrated with it, got somewhat cold towards her...
I feel awful for ever thinking that. It was not her nature and I was wrong to question her motives. Luckily, not long after she took that trip back home and to this guy she liked. When she got back a couple weeks later...she brought him with her. That was a bad decision, nay, a horrible decision, but they got a place to live together. That took all of the strain that I had felt and removed it. She later said that our friendship was much better and stronger after that. It meant a lot to me. She did not blame or judge me for my feelings, she understood them completely, but I still believe they were still unjustified.
Well, as time traveled, she made friends with our whole group, she made new friends and brought them into the fold, and we were always there, like a brother and sister, close as could be in that way.
Then a huge moment happened. I decided to move away. I decided that it was time, with various other things falling apart around me, to move and start a new life. I wanted so badly for her or other friends to come with me, but that was never to happen. At my going-away party we had bands and musicians play. When it was the end of my set, I sung and played her favorite song for her...she was in the crowd, singing and crying...I was crying too after seeing her and trying to finish my song. I knew what I was leaving and most of all, I was leaving my best friend in a scary world where she needed someone there...I couldn't look at her for the rest of the set. It tore my heart out and still, when I recall it today, I wish I could turn away from that image in my mind.
After I moved, we still talked over the internet and phone, but not as often. She grew tired and wary of some of the friends and normalcies of life. After a few months, she was done with that boyfriend she brought back down. He needed someplace to go. Somehow, in a weird turn of events (another story all together), he came and stayed with us. We gave him a chance, payed for him to get his GED which he failed. We got him 3 jobs, all of which he quit or got fired from in a short amount of time. This guy was a complete train wreck. The reason I talk about this is because it leads to the last part of our tale...
A couple of months after he moved up here, she came for a visit. She had a new boyfriend she wanted to tell me about, moved on in her life, and all the things that had been happening since I left. It was good, but weird because of the tension of her ex that was living with us. It all culminated in us throwing a Halloween party, alcohol, and a sexual encounter between her and her ex that should have never happened.
The next morning everything seemed good. She was leaving to go back to Merced. We dropped her off, she hugged and kissed me, and that was the last time I saw her. A couple of days later she called me to ask me to tell her ex to leave her alone and not talk to her again, which I agreed to do for her. That was fine, but that was the last I ever talked to this person that means to much to me. She never called again.
I reached out to her a few weeks later. She was not home but her roommate answered the phone. The conversation went like this:
Me: Hey is [girl] there?
RM: Uh, no, she is working.
Me: Oh, okay, can you have her call me later please?
RM: Uh, well, I will tell her, but she does not want to talk you.
Now, this was the first I had heard anything about this at all.
Me: What? What is going on?
RM: Well, she just told me she did not want to talk to you, but I will tell her you called and that you want to hear from her.
That was it. She did not want to talk to me. Still, years later, I don't know the exact reason for the break in contact. All I know is that I lost the best friend that I ever had. Just writing this gets me weeping because to me, she was my soul mate, or at least the closest thing I have ever known to such a title. Since that time, there have been major events in my life and when I looked over to find that friend to talk to, to alleviate my fears and work out my thoughts, she wasn't there. That was the first time I realized my isolation from the world that I knew.
Since that day I have found her on social networking sites, attempted contact a few times, but I have not heard a word in response, not even a "fuck off". That I could handle, but this silence has been about the hardest thing in my life to deal with. That fear, that unknown, it is a killer. I have recently found her once more, but I do not have the guts to reach out again. I have this extreme sense of fear that if I did, I would get the same silence and it would tear open this unhealing wound that I have learned to live with. I tell myself that if she wanted to talk to me, she could find me. I am not a hard man to find at all.
I heard some stuff through the grapevine about her, some stories, some whispers of her life. I listen intently, hoping for some clue as to what happened, but rarely do I get any good leads to work off of. One time recently I was back home, went out to a bar that a lot of my old group frequent. I saw a girl that might have been her there. My heart sped and I just could not contain myself very well. I kept looking over because I was not sure if it was her. It has been years and she was still growing and changing. After catching her eye a few times, I convinced myself that it was not her. There was no reaction at all. Mix that with the fact that I was not sold it was her in the first place, I finally settled down some.
That brings us to today where I write about pining for a friendship that I feel was stolen from me. I have a theory that she cut ties to everyone associated with her ex and me due to the influence of her boyfriend at the time. I have no real evidence of this, just suspicions from knowing him some and knowing things she said to me about him. I am saddened by this though because I thought she was smart enough to not let a guy control her life, unless, well, unless she wanted to. Maybe she did not need me anymore. This is the most heart-breaking theory because I would have thought that she loved me enough to tell me to fuck off at least.
I wish that I had more insight to add to this. I wish that I had some lesson to take, but if there is anything, it is this:
I feel that I will always be her friend. I will not let her decision to cut ties so dis respectively destroy my love for my best friend. I have told myself that if she ever comes calling again that I would treat her as I always had and be that brother to her that I liked to feel that I was. I would not treat her with scorn and possibly push her away again. This pain that I have is just a signal telling me that that I care, that she is a friend, reminding me that even though friends do some fucked up things sometimes, a true friend will always be there for you and accept you with open arms if that is what you need.
Take it or leave it. I just needed to write it down. Thanks for reading.
I used to hang out at the college a lot, in between classes, or just because a lot of my friends were there. I was sometimes seen as a glue that held groups of people together. One friend once looked around and saw a bunch of smiling people, talking and playing games, and called me the Patron Saint of this group, claiming that it was because of my influence that this existed at all. It was a compliment, but an overzealous one.
On a particular set of days I saw someone walking about the college by herself. I noticed her, as you do, but not in any sexually attracted sort of way, more in a sense of how she moved, walked, ignored the world around her and lived in a happy contemplation. Then this day came a long where, while sitting outside and assisting a friend with homework, quietly talking and smoking or whatever we were doing at the time, I saw her walking towards us. She was still wearing that coat that caused her to not care what was going on, but this time she was obviously coming towards us for some kind of engagement. I was thrilled. I had found myself intrigued by her for a few days, so this was a chance to meet a new friend.
There was some awkwardness at first as she was attempting to figure out how to, well, basically how to make friends. Come to find out she had just recently moved there, was young (17) at the time, and did not really know anyone at all. She came from Oregon and had later told me that she was amazed by the Central Valley because she had never seen a land so flat before.
We got to talking and right away we hit it off. We had a lot of the same tastes in music, in reading, and in movies. We talked philosophy, friends, and the world which we grew up. It was like finding your soul mate. We would clash and argue sometimes, but I like to believe that she looked up to me as an old brother. She would ask me questions, not just about the world, but about personal stuff, stuff that a parent should have taught her but didn't. Needless to say she was extremely smart for her age, but lacked some of the normal social common sense and niceties.
Later that first day, I saw her walking around town. I stopped to talk, gave her a ride to where she was living. That was a strange situation on it's own. She was staying with this person all the way across town, the other side of the tracks you might say, payed a shit ton for rent, the woman made her sleep on the couch, and refused to give her a key.
Over the next week is when we really bonded. We argued about the nobility in the action of Socrates, what a songwriter meant when choosing certain words, and which poets are better than others. It was fun, informative, stimulating, and most of, it was all done without a sense of pretentiousness or fuss. It was just good conversation. We stayed up together every day after classes talking. After only a week of knowing her, I went to give her a ride to the place she was staying. When we got there, it was cold and late. I would not leave until I knew she was inside and that night, it was not going to happen.
She banged and banged on the door, kept telling me to leave, she would just stay outside and wait for someone to come home. After awhile I just refused and told her to get in the truck. It was 2 in the morning, cold, and I was not going to let her freeze out there. I told her she is coming to stay at my house tonight, no arguing. She slept on the couch and the next morning we went back to school.
This became the norm. Giving rides and just plain being friends. She introduced me to the music of Bright Eyes, I showed her The Mountain Goats, and we would spend so many nights just talking and listening to music. We taught each other a lot of things.
Then she started falling for this guy from back home. She was going to go back up to see him soon and started asking me those questions about sex. Like I said before, she never seemed to have much in the way of common sense guidance, but a lot of good stories about her father otherwise. I remember this night because of a hilarious tangent our conversation went on when she became confused about a certain term for the woman's anatomy and my descriptions. She thought I was talking about one thing when I was talking about another and it caused some rather weird fears in her for awhile until we finally got on the same page. We laughed about that night and some hilarious imagery associated with it for many nights to come.
Soon, she was kicked out of the housing situation she was in. This caused her to become a squatter. She stayed on my couch most nights, but was always gracious and always kind. She was not a bum or a mooch by any means, but she always needed someone for a place to crash. She was in college with no place to live. All of this caused some tension between us because it got to feeling that maybe she was only my friend for a couch, maybe she only wanted to hang with me because she needed to sleep some place safe. I got frustrated with it, got somewhat cold towards her...
I feel awful for ever thinking that. It was not her nature and I was wrong to question her motives. Luckily, not long after she took that trip back home and to this guy she liked. When she got back a couple weeks later...she brought him with her. That was a bad decision, nay, a horrible decision, but they got a place to live together. That took all of the strain that I had felt and removed it. She later said that our friendship was much better and stronger after that. It meant a lot to me. She did not blame or judge me for my feelings, she understood them completely, but I still believe they were still unjustified.
Well, as time traveled, she made friends with our whole group, she made new friends and brought them into the fold, and we were always there, like a brother and sister, close as could be in that way.
Then a huge moment happened. I decided to move away. I decided that it was time, with various other things falling apart around me, to move and start a new life. I wanted so badly for her or other friends to come with me, but that was never to happen. At my going-away party we had bands and musicians play. When it was the end of my set, I sung and played her favorite song for her...she was in the crowd, singing and crying...I was crying too after seeing her and trying to finish my song. I knew what I was leaving and most of all, I was leaving my best friend in a scary world where she needed someone there...I couldn't look at her for the rest of the set. It tore my heart out and still, when I recall it today, I wish I could turn away from that image in my mind.
After I moved, we still talked over the internet and phone, but not as often. She grew tired and wary of some of the friends and normalcies of life. After a few months, she was done with that boyfriend she brought back down. He needed someplace to go. Somehow, in a weird turn of events (another story all together), he came and stayed with us. We gave him a chance, payed for him to get his GED which he failed. We got him 3 jobs, all of which he quit or got fired from in a short amount of time. This guy was a complete train wreck. The reason I talk about this is because it leads to the last part of our tale...
A couple of months after he moved up here, she came for a visit. She had a new boyfriend she wanted to tell me about, moved on in her life, and all the things that had been happening since I left. It was good, but weird because of the tension of her ex that was living with us. It all culminated in us throwing a Halloween party, alcohol, and a sexual encounter between her and her ex that should have never happened.
The next morning everything seemed good. She was leaving to go back to Merced. We dropped her off, she hugged and kissed me, and that was the last time I saw her. A couple of days later she called me to ask me to tell her ex to leave her alone and not talk to her again, which I agreed to do for her. That was fine, but that was the last I ever talked to this person that means to much to me. She never called again.
I reached out to her a few weeks later. She was not home but her roommate answered the phone. The conversation went like this:
Me: Hey is [girl]
RM: Uh, no, she is working.
Me: Oh, okay, can you have her call me later please?
RM: Uh, well, I will tell her, but she does not want to talk you.
Now, this was the first I had heard anything about this at all.
Me: What? What is going on?
RM: Well, she just told me she did not want to talk to you, but I will tell her you called and that you want to hear from her.
That was it. She did not want to talk to me. Still, years later, I don't know the exact reason for the break in contact. All I know is that I lost the best friend that I ever had. Just writing this gets me weeping because to me, she was my soul mate, or at least the closest thing I have ever known to such a title. Since that time, there have been major events in my life and when I looked over to find that friend to talk to, to alleviate my fears and work out my thoughts, she wasn't there. That was the first time I realized my isolation from the world that I knew.
Since that day I have found her on social networking sites, attempted contact a few times, but I have not heard a word in response, not even a "fuck off". That I could handle, but this silence has been about the hardest thing in my life to deal with. That fear, that unknown, it is a killer. I have recently found her once more, but I do not have the guts to reach out again. I have this extreme sense of fear that if I did, I would get the same silence and it would tear open this unhealing wound that I have learned to live with. I tell myself that if she wanted to talk to me, she could find me. I am not a hard man to find at all.
I heard some stuff through the grapevine about her, some stories, some whispers of her life. I listen intently, hoping for some clue as to what happened, but rarely do I get any good leads to work off of. One time recently I was back home, went out to a bar that a lot of my old group frequent. I saw a girl that might have been her there. My heart sped and I just could not contain myself very well. I kept looking over because I was not sure if it was her. It has been years and she was still growing and changing. After catching her eye a few times, I convinced myself that it was not her. There was no reaction at all. Mix that with the fact that I was not sold it was her in the first place, I finally settled down some.
That brings us to today where I write about pining for a friendship that I feel was stolen from me. I have a theory that she cut ties to everyone associated with her ex and me due to the influence of her boyfriend at the time. I have no real evidence of this, just suspicions from knowing him some and knowing things she said to me about him. I am saddened by this though because I thought she was smart enough to not let a guy control her life, unless, well, unless she wanted to. Maybe she did not need me anymore. This is the most heart-breaking theory because I would have thought that she loved me enough to tell me to fuck off at least.
I wish that I had more insight to add to this. I wish that I had some lesson to take, but if there is anything, it is this:
I feel that I will always be her friend. I will not let her decision to cut ties so dis respectively destroy my love for my best friend. I have told myself that if she ever comes calling again that I would treat her as I always had and be that brother to her that I liked to feel that I was. I would not treat her with scorn and possibly push her away again. This pain that I have is just a signal telling me that that I care, that she is a friend, reminding me that even though friends do some fucked up things sometimes, a true friend will always be there for you and accept you with open arms if that is what you need.
Take it or leave it. I just needed to write it down. Thanks for reading.
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