I’ve been mostly avoiding the media blitz covering the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Like so many, I’m drawn to reflect on my experiences of the events of that terrible day, even though I’m conflicted about the compulsion to “always remember.”
There are several memories of that day, and in the days that followed that are etched in my brain: what I was wearing; my plans for that morning; the panicked voice of the deejay as he announced the Pentagon had been hit; minutes later, the thin yellow vapor from that attack drifting through the perfect blue sky over my building, just a mile (or less) away; seeing the column of black smoke through the rear windshield as a dear friend and I drove away from the area; vomiting the next morning when I realized we had awoken into a nightmare instead of from one; beginning a dialogue with a Muslim coworker who would later become a great friend – a blessing that rose from from the ashes of fear. All of these are examples, however, of relatively easily describable experiences. They are snapshots and short home movies. The most profound memory I have of that day would be difficult to capture in a photo or film montage.
I don’t remember how long it was between when I heard that the Pentagon had been hit and when my friend Rene, and I, made it down to her car in the parking garage. Five minutes? Ten? It wasn’t long. I saw a brief image on the TV in the conference room of the Pentagon completely engulfed in a black cloud. Was that the side my husband worked in? I don’t remember. That building confuses me. I had to get home. That’s all I knew. And we needed to get Rene’s husband. We knew he was in Old Town, safely away from disaster. We had to get him, I rationalized, because I wanted at least one of us to be assured her husband was okay. I don’t remember how I got from the conference room to her car, but there we were, ascending up the ramp, just one or two cars from the sunshine outside the gaping maw of our building’s parking garage. It was then that it happened.
The image that flashed before my eyes was one of some nondescript multi-storied building that had been reduced to rubble, just moments before. Outside this building were women, most with their heads covered with scarves, crying out in undeniable sorrow. And I was transported. I was not inside Rene’s car. I was inside the minds of each of the women, seeing the rubble in the light of a blissfully ignorant sun. And each of those women was inside of me. There was a sudden psychic connection that breached time and space and put me in communion with every woman who has ever wondered whether her husband, lover, father, son or brother survived the blast that just occurred. They didn’t speak English. I wasn’t sure of their nationality or their language. But I heard their words and understood them perfectly, because they were mine. We were inexorably lost. We were all wailing together.
This experience lasted just a few moments, but is probably one of the memories of 9/11 I value most, if not the memory I value most. I had felt, first hand, the agony that I’d only ever seen on the news and gently “tsked” away. There was something comforting about sharing my confusion and panic with these women. There was something spiritually liberating about experiencing their tragedy with them, in their bodies and in that moment. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever felt true unity with strangers I only ever hear about from the other side of the world.
That’s great, but what does that have to do with language? Isn’t this a language blog?
Here’s where language comes in. In this moment of oneness, I remember hearing these women speaking in a non-English language, though I don’t know which. And I understood them. In the past, I’ve dreamt in Spanish, a language, in which I am conversant, but not fluent. But in these dreams, I was fluent. Similarly, I was fluent in whatever-these-women-cried-out-in. I couldn’t identify the language to save my life, I couldn’t replicate it, but I understood every utterance. Mostly because what was driving every word was completely unutterable. What was driving each sound that came from their mouths was stirring inside of me at that time. It was the closest I’ve ever come to what I suppose to be a “speaking in tongues” experience.
Human language is amazing. It’s great at expressing abstracts and communicating tangibles. But it has its limitations. There are plenty of experiences that are simply beyond words. I have yet to meet a woman who has so accurately conveyed the awe of childbirth to me that I can imagine how it feels. Even with all the visual aids in the world, and the sum of the English language at her disposal, could an astronaut ever aptly describe the wonder of seeing our planet from outerspace? Or how about the great ball of emotions that one must feel when he sits beside a loved one, long suffering from a terminal disease, as she takes her last breath? We can try as much as we want to, but verbal expression still manages to fail us. And while some of that could be due to our own limited vocabularies – heavens know I certainly don’t claim to be the most verbose bunny in the basket – at least some of that has to be because much of the human experience is simply beyond communication. Even the most pedestrian and common experiences can escape our expressive ability. I could never verbally convey with precise accuracy the love I feel for my husband, for instance. Poets spend their lives conveying these experiences and I would guess even the most genius of them would look at some piece and wonder if their words communicated perfectly what they wanted to communicate. We simply manage to satisfy ourselves with the phonemes our mouths can muster and the paltry symbols we can endow.
“What a piece of work is man! … in apprehension how like a god!” Absolutely. But we still have gravity holding our parts together and our feet on the ground. We still have only a few dozen individual sounds we could possibly string together to make words with. The unutterable moments and experiences of life graciously spare us from hubris. And hopefully, for even a few brief seconds, bind us closer to one another.
