Another Of BC's Great Writers

So I wrote a flood of impressions down. When I was stuck for more, I went back inside to the TV, watched another half hour of the plane zooming inside the building, of the Pentagon ablaze, and so on, and went back outside to my notebook with a fresh bunch of new feelings to harvest. And then I put the notes aside for whenever I might try to write a story about it. When it came time to assemble articles for the next issue of my biweekly newspaper that I publish, I was despondent. None of the usual articles seemed to matter at all in the immediate post-9/11 world, and yet, neither I nor anyone else could seem to write new articles either. I recognized immediately that the week after 9/11 was a rare and genuine liminal moment at the top of the pendulum swing when everything is so still and quiet, and yet so full of potential and motion. So I hit upon the idea of running out to Langara College and asking a friend who is a political science instructor there if I could speak to his class of 45 or so students. My idea was this: this liminal moment between the event and the beginning of all the myriad consequences of that event is a rare and special moment especially for people in their late teens and early 20s who will live adult lives utterly dominated by whatever 9/11 brings to the world. I invited them to quickly write down everything they were thinking at this moment, without analyzing too much, so that we could capture the essence of their reactions as they’re being formed. It went so well, I expanded the idea out a bit to some friends and even some younger people. The result was a special edition of my newspaper containing a hundred or so different voices in pieces that ranged from 25 words to 800 words by authors ranging from 8 years old to 73. The range of thought was just as enormous. I printed the paper and, re-reading it, I thought again of my own reactions to 9/11. Everyone else got to say what they thought, maybe I ought to pull my notes out and write them up to share what I thought too. The result was an essay I called "My revolting confession." http://www.republic-news.org/archive/161-repub/161_response.htm

Note: http://www.republic-new...