Earlier today, my
wife told me that
a blog she frequents had put out a call for people to write
about their experience on that day—a sort of
Where was I on 9/ll sort of
thing—and asked if I wanted to offer up a contribution myself. My first
reaction and indeed the first words out of my mouth were, “I can’t do that!” Obviously, I overcame that initial reaction, but not before a lot of serious
consideration.
The truth is I’m
not like other people. I have a mild form of Autism known as
Asperger Syndrome. Over the years I have come to terms with the fact that I
am different; I have learned to mitigate it when necessary; but it is true
nonetheless. The thoughts I have, and the emotions I experience, are far from
the norm. I might feel deep emotion—even be moved to tears—at little more than
the memory of a piece of music I love; I might not feel any emotion at
all at a moment when every sane and normal person should; and I might find humor
in something that hardly anybody finds funny at all. As you might imagine, this
causes me a considerable amount of difficulty.
Regarding 9/11, I
was so sure that my reactions at the time were not the norm—that they would be
incomprehensible, perhaps even hurtful, to those who had lost so much or even to
those who had experienced a more normal range of thoughts and emotions. So I
firmly told my sweetheart that, while I’d help her with her account, I wouldn’t
write one myself. I’m a good proofreader, particularly when it comes to making
order out of chaos—another Asperger trait.
In fact my
tendency toward pattern recognition is part of what this account is about, but
I’m getting ahead of myself. After I got done helping my wife edit her own
account and helping her post it, she asked me if she could read me some of the
other posts. I said she could, and she began to read them. What I heard was
very touching. Some of the writing was quite lovely as well, but pretty much
what I expected—the normal range of emotions. So I had been right not to write
and post my own account. Still, somewhere between five and ten such accounts, a
strange feeling came over me: I started remembering that day in vivid detail
and had a desire to write it down. I can’t explain what it was that came over
me, but I suddenly thought that I had to get it all out.
I remember that I
had been up late the night before writing some music and I was pretty deeply
asleep. I recall that my wife came into the bedroom and asked me the strangest
question: “If any more planes crash into buildings do you want me to wake you
up?” I said no. (I’ll always say no to waking up though if I really have a
choice.) Really, I thought I was dreaming anyway. Planes don’t crash into
buildings over and over except in movies. A while later, I woke up and went
into the living room where the rest of the family were watching the news.
Buildings definitely were burning and collapsing. The first words I remember
saying were: “So I guess I wasn’t dreaming, then.” I remember that some
newscaster was talking about how “no one had any idea what or who” was behind
the disaster. That’s when I started laughing. It was so obvious to me, that
every time I heard a jet plane roar overhead I started yelling “Aaaahhhlaaahhalalalalalllaaaahhhhh!!!!!!”
That was the main part I thought might hurt everyone’s feelings, but as I
mentioned earlier, I often see humor in things no one else finds funny. And I
thought it was hilarious that these talking heads were so completely clueless as
to the very obvious cause. I knew we were under attack. I knew it was Muslim
extremists. And I knew that you didn’t have to be the rainman to put that
together. Of course as the hours passed, everyone came to realize what I knew
in an instant; the talking heads could no longer deny it, even though it seemed
like they, as usual, had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward the truth.
That day, I was
never sad, angry or afraid. But I was and am an American. And I knew we had to
do something serious or many more Americans would die. As time went on, I felt,
as I still feel now, very positive about the steps that have been taken; but
still, it doesn’t seem like enough. I love America and I don’t want Americans
to suffer. I would prefer if it were not necessary to turn the entire Middle
East into Glassistan, but I sometimes I fear that may be the only way to protect
the civilized world. I also see that America and Americans may have become too
civilized to fight this war as aggressively as necessary.
It’s often said
that people with Asperger are detached—too detached to see the human cost of
such extreme actions. But the truth is that I see these costs only too well—the
cost of doing too much, and the infinitely greater cost of doing too little.
