Where Were You When

For as far back as I can remember, grownups have been asking each other "Where were you when JFK was shot?" (Yes, even here in Canada) and then grousing that Kids Today just don't understand the momentous emotional significance of that event. Which is true - I simply cannot process an event that happened 17 years before my birth through emotional channels. So I always felt a wee bit miffed that nothing important enough had happened for me to say Where I Was When.

When Princess Diana was killed, I used that for a while. When it happened, I consciously made a point of remembering Where I Was so I could participate in the discourse with all the grownups when it came up. I was at my parents', making myself a cup of hot chocolate before bed (Yes, I know it was August, no I don't know why I wanted hot chocolate in August), and I wandered into the family room to watch a bit of TV while I drank it, and found my mother watching the breaking news on TV. I took that and locked it away. I wasn't nearly as emotionally affected by the event as many people, but I finally knew Where I Was When something happened.

Of course, I had no way of knowing that 9/11 would come along in a few short years and be the definitive Where Were You When. I was in my res room, which was part of a suite that I shared with H. and R., two education students. It had a semi-private bathroom, but it also had far more phobia triggers than were healthy. I had woken up at 9:30 (and was feeling very virtuous for having done so), when the DJ on JAZZ-FM mentioned in passing that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I pictureda stray Cessna and thought "Oh, this might be an interesting story, I'll have to watch for it in the news tomorrow." Since the DJ then went back to playing music (I still don't know if he didn't know the magnitude of the story, or if he had no way of running a news feed since it was a non-commercial music station), I filed it away in the back of my mind, had a shower, and proceeded to French class. French class went normally (I don't know whether no one knew or whether those who knew were making a deliberate attempt to behave normally). When class let out, I went to the cafeteria for some pizza, only to be faced with a bunch of TVs all lined up, Peter Mansbridge listing airline flight numbers. It was then, at about 2:30pm, that I grasped the full magnitude of the disaster, having been filled in in Spanglish by the Hispanic girl next to me who couldn't quite summon up all her English in the excitement.

But I don't think it's that literal Where Where You When that's really important, so let's look at it another way:

When Princess Diana was killed, I was 16 years old, about to go into Grade 12. I had probably seen mi cielito in the now-defunct online community we met in, but I doubt we'd actually talked to each other yet and I had no inkling that it might develop into a romance. I was still using text-only Freenet access to go online because it was the cheapest. Of the people whom I consider my friends today, I hadn't met most of them, and those I had met I had no idea that our friendship might last into adulthood rather than being a passing high school friendship of convenience. It hadn't yet occurred to me to study translation (I would be exposed to the idea in a few short weeks.) It had never crossed my mind that I might live in Toronto - I always figured that's what people with an inflated sense of glamour did and I had no idea that it might be practical. If you'd told me about the awesome neighbourhood I live in now, I would have been all "Young and Egg? What?" If you'd told me that I have a tiny high-rise apartment that's NOT infested, I would have been shocked that there was such thing. Shameful as it is for me to admit today, if you'd told me that the majority of men I deal with on a daily basis would be gay, I'd wonder where my future self had gone wrong. Basically, a description of my life today would have planted some intriguing ideas into my head, but I wasn't yet in a position to connect the dots from where I was then to where I am now. It was a completely different life. Where was I? In a completely different place, both literally and metaphorically.

On 9/11, I was 20 years old, just beginning 3rd year university. I was studying translation, living in Toronto, I had the same social circle I do today (with the exception of a few co-workers), I was familiar with my current neighbourhood, I had snapped out of the homophobia that I'd grown up in and was campaigning for the legalization of same-sex marriage, I had high-speed internet (for the first time). Even the minor trappings are similar: The t-shirt I wore to sleep last night might have been the same one I wore to sleep the night of Sept. 10, 2001. The underwear I'm wearing right now I bought shortly before 9/11. Same with the machine that made the coffee I'm sipping as I write this. Basically on 9/11 I could see how the next five years might make my life into what it is now. It was one of many possible outcomes, true, but I could easily see it working out like this. It was the same life. Where was I? In a very similar place. Not exactly the same place, but just a couple of (literal and metaphorical) blocks away. And people who are older than me may well be able to say that they were in exactly the same metaphorical, and maybe even literal, place as they are today.

I think this is why I'm not comfortable with 9/11 being the subject of TV and movies, or with people making money off of the story. It's still reality. We look back on Where We Were on 9/11, and we see our current selves a few years ago. It hasn't yet become history because most of us are in the same place, so it isn't quite appropriate to tell it as a fictionalized story or a historical documentary. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to hold off until such a time was we look back on Where We Were When and see our former selves.