On the 70th Anniversary Of 9/11/51

My mom was born on September 11, 1951. If you do the math, this means she turned 50 on “9/11.” A senior at Penn State at the time, I’d coincidentally skipped my morning class and turned on the TV just in time to see the 2nd plane hit. Stunned and horrified by what followed, I sublimated my emotions into extreme concern about my girlfriend, an aeronautics engineer working at - or at least near - a small airport in Maryland. After all, who knew where chaos would strike next?

Once I ascertained my then-lady's safety (to her understandable annoyance), it was a long day of sad, confused conversations with friends on the phone and in nearby dining halls. I debated calling out of my shift at the campus Engineering Library, before thankfully realizing that it was unlikely I was in the top 10 tiers of people needing a break that afternoon, even locally. Afterwards, my mom - a communication disorders professor - picked me up and took me to Outback Steakhouse to “celebrate” her special day. Aside from a wry, embarrassed acknowledgement that she’d been denied the self-pity she expected to be indulging, it was another long conversation about politics, our sadness, confusion, etc. The TV at Outback (did they always have one running or just for national tragedies?) showed politicians mingling on the capitol steps as we left, presumably to confirm we still had a working government.

With Twitter not even a glimmer in Jack Dorsey’s eye, and my nearest acquaintances watching the scene from rooftops in Brooklyn, it would be years before on-the-ground anecdotes gave me any real sense of just how nightmarish the experience was for survivors in Manhattan. So when I think of 9/11 - in terms of a temporal and cultural moment I was there to experience - I mostly think about that evening with my mom, who I’d lose to lymphoma within a decade. I think about how glad I was to give her some companionship and comfort, both as a devoted son and as, even then, a droll fount of idiosyncratic perspective and aggregated wisdom. I think about how much I miss even the most banal of our conversations. I wonder if those talks would have grown any more vulnerable and open as I experienced marriage, fatherhood, separation, grad school, cross-country moves, further societal collapse, the introduction of psychiatric medicine to my noggin, and therapy sessions ranging from enlightening to abusive. At the time she passed, I was confident in how she’d respond to anything I was going through as a 29-year-old working writer, living in Brooklyn and ready to propose. She was that moral, that consistent and that supportive. But as a stay-at-home single dad north of 40, blindsided more than once by the lack of sympathy & strength found in an expected source of unconditional love, I can’t be sure of anything.

Despite writing way too much about myself on social media, I don’t believe I’ve ever shared any of my experiences or feelings around 9/11. Even though writers can be expected to acknowledge a late mother’s birthday, going there just felt disrespectful to the millions of people with more pain and more notable experiences around that particular date. But after scrolling through a deleted-but-not-forgotten tweet-tale of how the deaths of thousands of neighbors inspired a man to become a titan of start-ups and stock photos, I decided…fuck it! Let's show a little boldness! The bar for embarassment has been set remarkably high.

For months, if not years, I’ve been meaning to write more. To start a newsletter. To introduce my new pen name. To censor myself less. To “take up more space.” This feels like a perfect opportunity to do all of that, and in a way I once would have fainted before attempting. While this site/newsletter/tumblespot3.0 will mostly be an outlet for my enthusiasms and opinions regarding songs and other forms of creative work, I want to feel free to chase the muse and find out what I’m capable of, sans commercial concern, sensible expectations and all the other ways I rationalize my social anxiety and fear of rejection. So here’s the best 70th birthday present I could think of for a woman who only wanted me to feel happy, loved, and confident in my ability to do right and enrich the lives of those around me, even if she wasn’t always sure how to make that happen. I wish she was here to read it.