Dissolute Kinship: A 9/11 Road Trip

On September 11, 2001 – the day we were forced to re-evaluate our relationship with America, and therefore the world – I set out on a quest that would lead me from the Pacific Coast of Canada to New York City, and back again. By journey’s end, I would have covered over 14,000 kilometres, but the distance I was to cover across my emotional landscape has yet to be fully evaluated.A flurry of memories. Those first inklings that something wasn’t right, whisperings from morning radios, 7:00 am Pacific time, tickling the back of consciousness. Something about missing airplanes – did the announcer just say eight of them? Turning on the TV despite it being a Tuesday, a school day. That primal shock warring with the shrill internal argument of denial. And the images of small things falling from massive towers like embers, or like leaves. (They couldn’t be people. No. No. They couldn’t be people.) The last-second adjustment of something shiny-grey and predatory as it banked and slid seemingly without sound or effort through something that had previously appeared solid. Oddly slow blooms of fire, cauliflower heads of smoke. Television talking heads. These images. Trying to make sense. Mostly failing.