Wise words, Ira.

9/11

I spent a great deal of today contemplating what happened in this country 10 years ago and how those events have changed my life and my outlook on life. I'm certainly not alone in this introspection, far from it. We spent most of our afternoon going to a concert at Cleveland High School (beautiful concert hall, by the way) with a packed house of people who all came to remember the same events and implications. For starters, it's almost an hour drive away from our house, and Kat and I spent a lot of that drive talking about our own perspective on what had changed in our lives. I had been stuck this morning while listening to NPR by really how much had changed, seemingly overnight, 10 years ago. The way we travel, the conversations we have with people from other countries, the way we feel about being an American and what that means.

The concert started with Fanfare for the Common Man, which rarely fails to move me and certainly didn't disappoint today. There were readings and a few other pieces, but the big showpiece was The Armed Man, which is quite an epic piece. It's a very ambitious exploration of war, not written specifically for this occasion, but an interesting exploration on this occasion. I found myself longing for more to discuss, though, than the military and militaristic aspects of this topic. There's so much more to my feelings today than the Global War On Terror or Al-Queda's War On Westernism, or whatever it should be called. I scrawled down the following during the concert:

It's not that I don't respect my brothers and sisters in uniform, because I do, but the memory of 9/11 means so much more to me than armed conflict. Today I remember a brave group of misfit passengers who decided their deaths were going to mean something; the rescue workers, in uniform or not, who looked for survivors, then bodies, then cleaned up the mess--some who gave their lives so the rest of us could continue ours in peace; civil libertarians who have recognized these 10 years as vitally important to keeping what's dear to us; artists who have continued on their lifelong quest for beauty, ignoring the ignorant who told them the search was futile; journalists and documentarians who stood fast in their quest for the truth, no matter how unattainable it has seemed; everyone who continues to hope for a better world despite evidence to the contrary.

I tried to paraphrase and expand on what I'd written at the time, but didn't like it as much as what I was feeling in that moment.

So if you're going to talk about the armed conflict which happened before, on and after September 11, 2001, I'll be happy to talk with you about it. There's a lot of good conversation to be had and a lot of opportunity for us all to grow in that conversation. I highly recommend The Armed Man, and I hope you managed to see one of the many live performances of it today. It's very moving, and a very interesting exploration of all kinds of armed conflict.

I'm still craving more discussion about the other things.