10.14.01 - 4:09

it�s sunday october 14, 2001 in sevilla, espa�a. it has been a month and three days since new york exploded and still it�s nearly impossible to stretch my mind around it. last night we started with tapas and wine and ended with ice cream and coffee and tried to talk about it, but the words are still stuck in our throats. what is it like to be abroad when something like this happens to your home country? i wish i could explain it. heidi just received a package from home sent september 19 and inside the package, special issues of people magazine and newsweek from september 11th. i sat at a table at caf� nuria downstairs from our apartment and the sun was lovely and the air was cool and i ordered a caf� con leche and a tostada con mermelada and i read both of the magazines straight through and my head felt funny, and then my stomach felt funny, and then i felt something trembling inside of me, maybe it was my heart, i don�t know, and then my breathing felt all wrong, and then i sat in the sun and stared at the sugar packet lying on the table in front of me for about ten minutes. it�s so hard to explain. looking at the images and reading people�s accounts and journalists� opinions, i know it�s impossible for anyone to understand this. but across the atlantic ocean it�s completely unfathomable. the day after it happened i went out and bought a copy of el pa�s and read it front to back and yes, i was successful even though it�s all in spanish. but still, that�s a spanish account of an american tragedy and the distance of it is almost as great as the distance between you and me right now. so today i read american accounts in sevilla and it�s all just so terrifying. how do you explain the reality of it? what was our first reaction? my god, that�s terrible, i hope we still get to go to morocco? and then the numbers, 2000 dead, 4000 dead, 6000 dead, more than 6000 dead and what do you say, what do you do, how do you understand numbers like that? we�ll always remember pearl harbor as a day that will live on in infamy and december 7 will always be etched into our collective memory, but september 11 now is a date that signifies a far greater tragedy, so many more lives, so much more damage to the american psyche. i�m not a patriot. there are times when i disagree with many of the decisions that my country (by birth, right, not by choice) makes, but i am shocked by the feelings of, well, i don�t know how else to describe it besides patriotism. is that what it is?

and though the body count is appalling and incomprehensible, we know too that these casualties are not the worst blow dealt to our nation in this attack. america, the beautiful, the powerful, the impenetrable, the invincible, the invulnerable, all of these ideas have been shattered and we feel brand new and exposed and naked again, as a nation. the pages of newsweek and people are filled with dust and fire and smoke and faces, and i�m sitting here struggling to make it real, but how am i going to feel coming back to the united states when all is said and done? what�s supposed to make it real, and why do i want to make it real, what can possibly make it �real�? this doesn�t happen. this doesn�t happen in america, this doesn�t happen on american planes, this doesn�t happen in american airports. this doesn�t happen in america. sometimes i think i am dreaming that i am in spain and then i wake up and i�m in spain and maybe i�m dreaming. i feel the same way about all of this, like i�ll wake up and then i won�t be in spain anymore and none of this will have happened. such a feeling of detachment, of helplessness. the magnitude of what has come to pass while i�m so so far away from home. so i�m sitting here listening to the get up kids� �out of reach� over and over again, and what they tell me is this, there�s room to believe, out of sight, out of mind, out of reach, start over, start over, it�s no way to begin�but where is the room to believe, and what exactly am i supposed to believe in, and if starting over�s not the way, then what do you do?

i can�t explain to you how easy it is to put these things in a corner of memory far far away from here. i look out of my window and see streets lined with perfect small trees bearing perfect green fruits. when we first arrived we were a little confused, are these lime trees everywhere we look, but of course that was a stupid dazed first impression, they�re sevilla�s famed orange trees and soon all the green will turn to orange and we�ll be in the middle of a picture postcard that�s even more beautiful than the postcard in which we live in today. i don�t want to go back and people who thought they were staying for a semester are staying for a year and part of me wants to stay so badly and part of me says, no, you�re going back, you�re moving out to california, you�re working temp jobs and waitressing and whatever you need to do to make rent for 6 or 7 months and then you�re going to law school. and then what? working summers and saving money and going to school and working summers and saving money and working at a big firm 80 or 100 hours a week for three or four years and saving money and then traveling the world and writing my great american novel and putting real life behind me for good. it�s not made for me. real life in the real world, this is where things don�t make sense, where they show the same footage over and over again on all the channels of palestinians celebrating in the streets and firing guns into the air and handing out candy while they watch the world trade center collapse on their television screens. how can it be real? we�re taught we can�t believe everything we see on television, we can�t believe everything we read in newspapers and magazines, we can�t believe everything we hear on the radio and suddenly radios and magazines and newspapers and television are all we have to believe in. reality is knowing that osama bin laden is not just another terrorist, but a mastermind with millions of dollars. the most dangerous criminal is a wealthy and intelligent one and can we even imagine the resources he has at his disposal now? do we really think it�s feasible to go into afghanistan and root him out like a common criminal? and while we drop bombs on military centers and food and medical supplies in civilian zones, we still can�t stop this sort of thing from happening, �una bomba de ee uu cae por error en una zona civil de kabul,� an american bomb accidentally falls in a civil zone of kabul, we can�t stop taliban leaders from intercepting food and aid and stockpiling it, keeping it from the people who really need it. we can believe in our country, strong and proud and powerful because we have to believe in something, we can believe in god, but it doesn�t matter, we can no longer believe that we�re immune to the evil in the world around us, we can no longer pretend that there isn�t evil.

and now i�m going to settle down with today�s el pa�s and read about arab-american relations in dearborn, mi where the largest arab community in america vive el miedo, lives in fear. later i�ll read umberto eco�s account of �las guerras santas: pasi�n y raz�n and i know i will marvel at the beauty of his words and his way with language and maybe for a second or two it will distract me from the truth of what he has to say, the truth of all of this all at once. i will read about �rabes y tambi�n americanos, en ee uu hay tres millones de �rabes. ahora tienen miedo. i will think about pearl harbor and japanese internment camps set up across america and japanese americans joining the war effort and that is all history, no, History, with a capital �H� and once i thought that didn�t happen anymore, i didn�t think our generation could ever have a led zeppelin, i didn�t think we�d ever have a JFK, i didn�t think we�d have a vietnam or a manhattan project or any of that. i didn�t think it had to be a tragedy or some sort of incredible success, i didn�t see us capturing the magic of the moon landing and i didn�t see the world trade center collapsing and i didn�t wish for History with a capital �H,� but somehow it�s found us and i�m 21 years old and living in the middle of it and yet so far, far away.

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