An Addendum to Yesterday's Post

I've been thinking a bit more about September 11th and how our observation of it has changed in six years.

At work yesterday, we had a moment of silence at 8:46am. We used to have 4: one for each plane hitting the towers and one for the moments each tower fell. Now we're down to 1. I'm not sure when it changed.

As I mentioned, I commute to work via the WTC PATH. For those of you who haven't been on this train, it runs along the inside edge of the hole/construction site that is Ground Zero. When PATH service to the WTC stop first resumed, a hush would come over the riders as the train emerged from the tunnel and entered Ground Zero.

In time, of course, that dissipated, and the WTC stop became just another train station. And, in the main, I'd have to say that that's a good thing. If everyday, twice a day, every commuter through the WTC station thought about September 11th, I think we'd all be in therapy for major post-traumatic stress disorder. As it was, it was all I could do to make it to work yesterday after walking through the gauntlet of silence without breaking down.

But, here's the weird thing--which I'm having trouble capturing: Commuting, at least in the NYC area, is generally a silent activity. We're New Yorkers, we don't talk to strangers. And it's very rare for someone to be commuting with a friend or colleague. And cell phones don't get service on the train. Yet that everyday quiet is completely different from the silence yesterday. Maybe because it was more people in a smaller space being quiet. Maybe it was because those incidental conversations just weren't happening. Maybe it was that no cars were on Church St., so there was no traffic noise. Whatever it was, the silence was palpable. And reverent.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the September 11th observances will officially have lost their poignancy when the silence is gone.