The Day That ...

It's been four years since 9/11, the day that changed Am ... no, wait a minute, too cliche. Start again.

It's been four years since 9/11, the day we woke up to ... no, that's not it either.

It's been four years since 9/11, the day Bush and his imperialist ... well, no, not exactly.

What the fuck does this fucking day mean?

Seriously. What does it mean? There seems to be nothing we all can agree on in the post-9/11 world (look, another cliche) but surely we can come up with some answer to that question.

The attacks of September 11th (or, if you're President Bush, "September the 11th") are the most-witnessed event in the history of the world. When I say we all experienced this event, I mean it. We all experienced this event, personally, on TV, in each of our hearts. Since that day, we have gone over and over and over it, in endless recaps and tributes and "special reports." There have been commissions and hearings and investigations devoted to parsing ever-finer points of this event, in the name of telling us "what happened that day" even though we all experienced it.

So why, when we speak of it, does it sound like we're all describing different events?

The fact is, I don't know what 9/11 means. So I won't presume to tell you.

I know this is a disappointment. I'm writing about the 9/11 anniversary. Surely I should tell you, at least, what I think it means. But what would be the point? Would I change your mind? If you see 9/11 as the day we woke up to a terrorist threat and resolved to drain the swamps of oppression wherever they appeared, nothing I say will stop you. Nor if you believe it was the day Bush and the Neocons (and there's a name for a punk band if I've ever heard one) took up the banner of American capitalist imperialism and mired us in a global war from which it will take years and many deaths to extricate ourselves.

For me, the 9/11 anniversary is mostly about work, pain, and exhaustion. Unlike most people, I do not have the option of turning off my TV on this day -- so I also cannot wrap the event in meaning. Meaning pales before the sight of those faces, the sound of those names.

No doubt this won't always be. No doubt we will someday be able to point to the events of September 11th, 2001, and say, "This is what they mean." But not yet.