Don't get me wrong, I know it's disconcerting for me to be impassive about an event that killed or wounded nearly 4,000 people where I grew up; it happened only five years before my father was born. I can only take solace in that I'm not alone in my indifference. Many of the friends I grew up with have never been either, with the exception of maybe a third-grade field trip.
Since I can't recall a time when the bombings have made their way into any causal or even political discussion had or overheard in Hawaii, it could be argued that now, two generations after the attack, local people think of Pearl Harbor as just another base, another exit on the freeway that they pass on their way about their daily business. The bombings happened during a time most of us have never lived through on a corner of an island we usually have no reason to visit. Its impact has been relegated to a few paragraphs in textbooks, a part of American history, which is much different than Hawaiian history and less pertinent to local culture. I believe because of its geography, Hawaii always has, and probably always will have, a strange disconnect with Mainland America.
The other day, I ventured to Ground Zero for the first time. I have been to New York on one other occasion since 9-11, but having made the token tourist stops on a pre-9-11 visit in 1998 (Statute of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park), I didn't think to do anything but simply be on vacation (i.e. shop, eat, drink) while I was here last. Visiting Ground Zero honestly slipped my mind. (Again, the only excuse I'll offer is that murky Hawaiian/American paradox: I'm almost too familiar with the tragedy's impact because I'm a media-consuming American, but the event's distance, enormity and its aftermath has left me somewhat desensitized because I'm a self-centered West Coaster, and well, a media-consuming American. Like I said, I'm not proud of my bizarre disassociation or my priorities. I know if I were a tourist from another country, this would probably be the first place I'd go.)
Almost eight years after 9-11, if there weren't posters advertising the soon-to-open September 11th Museum stapled to the site's perimeter, a tribute center in a neighboring storefront or a staircase leading to a covered walkway for photo ops, Ground Zero, almost, almost could pass as another construction site in the city. Sure, a steady stream of people circle this block of Lower Manhattan, but a steady stream of people plow through every block of Manhattan. Ditto for the cops manning the fenced-up site; cops commonly patrol "no trespassing" zones.
In the covered overpass, I was one of several tourists taking pictures through a roped-off glass window. Behind us, businessmen in designer suits shuffled off to the World Financial Center at the other end of the walkway.
After I took some photos, I paced the overpass for a bit, stopping at several windows, trying to look past the cranes and scaffoldings. But I felt like I couldn't strain my neck far enough to get inside this space that was now just a dock for steel, concrete and piping; I would never be close enough to walk in the dirt where those buildings once stood. After a few minutes, I joined the rest of the tourists. I took a last photo and walked away.
I wandered to the FDNY memorial wall, located off a side street. I found another handful of tourists reading several handwritten tributes. Around the dedication plaque were a few bouquets of dried flowers.
Today
When the memorial was resurrected in 2006.
Of course I'd be silly to think I'd find New Yorkers grieving here on their lunch break. Naturally, I'm sure they avoid this crowded area as they would any crowded area. But I don't assume to know what goes through a New Yorker's mind, nor would I ever suggest that 9-11 compares to Pearl Harbor, an event that happened 67 years ago. However, time, memory and the instinct to move on--call it self-serving, human nature, or simply survival--make curious allies.
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