Watching and Waiting

I can hear the phone ringing on the other end of the line. Two times, three times—the ringing stops, replaced by that interminable beeping some soft, almost tangible distance away from my anxious ear. Circuits busy. Again.

I, like the majority of the population of New York City, New York State, America, the world, have spent the last 24 hours of my life stranded in some sort of inescapable state of emotional limbo. I can’t drop myself in further for fear of drowning, and I certainly can’t pull myself out, for fear of losing my humanity. Surrounded by repeated images, discussions, accusations, threats, curses, and the whizzing of fighter jets overhead, I fluctuate between solitary disbelief and solitary horror. For although I have never felt more communally connected to my fellow New Yorkers, I have also never felt quite so stranded, helpless, alone. All I can think to care about at this precise moment, all I can think to listen for over the drone of the newscaster’s voice citing a death toll in the thousands, is the slight click on the other end of that damn phone, the slight catch before an intake of breath, and the sound of my mother, father or brother’s voice.

It’s like having both my hands cut off. Or a piece of flesh extracted from under my ribcage. I would give blood, but the hospitals are overwhelmed; I would volunteer, but what good can an untrained teen do while stranded in Massachusetts? Powerless to do anything, powerless to say anything, the only thing left to do is to wait. And to watch: those images, over and over, from one angle then another, from below, from above, from the street corners on which I’ve stood and the restaurants at which I’ve eaten. The descriptions of all possible aspects of the disaster, the footage of survivors crouched behind cars and coated in white soot (while the newscaster babbles on about the symbolism of “American Capitalism Under Attack”—a real movie title, isn’t it?), and the endless screaming photos on the front page of each newspaper, photos of my home city swallowed by a cloud of dust. Each image hammered home to that empty gasping place somewhere below my heart.

I eat. I drink. I breathe. I even manage a few laughs here and there, a few moments of happy oblivion. Routine is what we use to keep our minds from overtaking us. Forget talk—it trivializes. Forget silence—it magnifies. Only routine—the calmness of physical denial, the okay-ness of everyday motions—reclaims for me the repetition that is normality.

Yes, my family is fine. I am one of the lucky ones. I finally heard from them Tuesday afternoon, after hours of attempting contact. But the strange thing to me, the unexpected connection between the personal and national tragedies resulting from this event, is that even now that waiting feeling remains. Even after the personal reassurance has set in, even after the e-mails, the phone calls, the confirmation that my family is safe, even now I’m stuck on the edge of my seat balanced between fear and disbelief.

Friends have asked me if I’m angry. Why, because the vivacious teeming city in which I grew up is changed forever? Because my brother couldn’t sleep Tuesday night because of the sound of fighter jets overhead? It is so tempting to be angry. But to let our anger overwhelm us, to let it manifest itself in hate mail and threatening phone calls to innocent people and organizations—that is to let these cowards win.

So no, I am not angry. Like so many others, I am just drained. And, like so many others, I’m waiting.

Strength to all those who suffer—my thoughts are with you.

Margot E. Kaminski ’04 is a history and literature concentrator in Cabot House.