Randi Kreiss

Living in the world, 14 years after 9/11

Posted

To paraphrase the question posed in a popular hotel commercial, “Should we stay or should we go?”

In the almost decade and a half since the terrorist attacks on New York, travel, to me, has felt like an imperative. For one thing, I didn’t want to give in to fear and intimidation. It’s humiliating enough to go through body scans and metal detectors at the airports. I didn’t want to diminish my autonomy further by cowering at home rather than seeing the world while I still had the time and resources to do so.

Second, the devastating loss of life that day — we all knew victims and survivors — made life seem even more fragile and fleeting. Waiting to feel safe enough to travel translates as just waiting. It will never be safe enough again.

Finally, the preciousness of every day on earth is the single most positive takeaway from our national tragedy. And if it takes a bit of courage to live our days the way we want to, then we have to find it in ourselves.

I’m not speaking just about foreign travel. We have to be brave to hang out in an airport, get on a train, visit a museum, put our children on a school bus, and even to venture from the suburbs into the Big Apple. My husband and millions of other commuters have to be brave every morning just to go to work. The crowds, the tension, the military presence in New York City are still daunting. He frequently mentions increased security and soldiers and dogs in Penn Station, and I know the stress takes a toll.

As the June 17 church attack in Charleston, S.C., demonstrated, even gathering to pray is not without its risks. The perpetrator in that case was a homegrown terrorist of the racist persuasion. Attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the recent jihadist assault on a French train and even the Egyptian army’s killing of 12 tourists whom they had mistaken for terrorists remind us daily that the world has become an increasingly dangerous place.

Page 1 / 3