Katrina vs. 9/11
I was speaking to a New Yorker today about 9/11 and he was telling me how that single catastrophe is something that most New Yorkers want to put in the past, forget about, and move on. The hustle bustle of New York once it resumed post 9/11 has yet to take another collective breath.
Yet, for us in New Orleans, Katrina caused a lot of soul searching – it fomented divorces, babies, marriages, career changes, and many other transitional pathways that opened up for those of us who went through Katrina. The event set off a wave of volunteerism that has yet to abate, our schools were reimagined, and neighbors relearned the value of helping each other.
Katrina didn’t devastate – it renewed.
My New Yorker friend said that 9/11 was a hiccup to New York and not much changed afterwards.
September 25th, 2009 at 1:16 am
I’m so offended by the last line – though I know you didn’t intend so. I think perhaps you speak of people who aren’t native NYers or who haven’t been personally affected by 9/11, in the same way that you are pretty much a native of New Orleans (I believe) and were there when it happened. Plenty of us, many people close to me, view it as a continuing tragedy, not a hiccup. Best and love to you, me.
September 25th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I think of 9/11 as an event that changed all of us – here in the US and abroad – I don’t think anyone went unscathed. This conversation which I annotated the last line to present as his opinion and not mine was that New York had this major tragedy but the event did not change the path New York is on – that the daily mechanics went back to being the same – he thought it is a purposeless path of making money and on and on. Actually a friend of mine lost his brother in 9/11 and every year that anniversary is marked with such sorrow that I know it severely impacted his life. I speak more about the city than the people in the city when I say it renewed us after Katrina – New Orleans is better, are we? Hard to say, we now live mired in uncertainty with a pause in our life loop that we always circle back to.
I am very sorry to have offended you – I was not offering my opinion on 9/11 I was trying to describe this conversation – New York is in my mind America and when that horrible event happened it was like someone just threw battery acid on me – I do believe my friend meant the best too – he is a New Yorker and loves his city and its inhabitants but I think he is on a spiritual path to give meaning to his life and he doesn’t see that this was the catalyst it could have been for all New Yorkers to take a moment and consider the path ahead and refocus – I think he means that about the collective not an individual.
What are you thoughts?
September 28th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
It seems I interpreted the comment the wrong way. In a business sense, yes I would agree NY seems unchanged post 9/11. I was watching the Ken Burns National Park series last night and in regards to Yellowstone, editorials in the day (1800’s), spoke of the materialistic nature of Americans and how the Washington lobbyists and big business (Northern Pacific Railroad) were ruining Yellowstone. It struck a chord because I realized we have always been a materialistic nation, so no 9/11 wouldn’t change that. Is it actually any coincidence that post 9/11 we saw the greatest economic growth (if just a facade) based on unethical (but not illegal) business practices? I don’t know if one can be in an environment like NYC and find a spiritual path. The energy of the city and the energy one needs to survive in it do not lend itself to finding one’s spirituality. As the song says, if you can make it there…that’s because it is a dog eat dog city with zero room for empathy. Your survival skills are always on heightened alert, which is why New Yorkers turn out so ‘hard’.
So the facade of those who suffered personally continue to be hard, I do not look at those and see a ‘softening’ or a new found spirituality, actually a sadness masked by an increased hardening of the mind (or what you might call soul/spirit).
Happy holiday to you,
Me.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Well your response the first time really hit me down deep because I remember about nine months afterwards my husband at the time was having a conversation with a colleague and the colleague said, “9/11 didn’t change my world,” and I found that comment so clueless and so having missed the point – as IT SHOULD HAVE.
I’m glad you read my response because I wouldn’t want that to linger in your mind as honestly I feel part of the same materialistic world. Today was Yom Kippur and I sat looking through past writings I have done on this day and they all seem to point to the same anxiety – enough money to live. But don’t I have that and don’t you? Surely my anxieties might be better placed thinking about whether the kids in this city (New Orleans) have enough money to eat.
Happy Holiday back at you, R