But, at least for the time being, the very contours of normalcy had been transformed. In the first week after September 11, there was much talk of a country changed forever. Out were the giddy worship of celebrity, a culture etched in the acid of irony, the consumerist lust for the perfect pair of shoes. In were tears, flags, firemen and “God Bless America.” A nation that had looked mostly inward since the end of the cold war began poring over maps of Afghanistan.
America at play turned into America at work, with a newfound sense of unity and purpose. In Philadelphia, in the intermission after the second period of a hockey game between the Flyers and the New York Rangers, the crowd watched the start of President Bush’s address to Congress on a large screen over the rink. When the players came back on the ice to resume the game, the television was turned off. But the fans erupted in a wild storm of protest, so the speech was turned back on and everyone watched till it was over. The third period was never played; the game ended in a 2-2 tie. In the new America, even sports bowed to statesmanship.
The shock of disaster upended some lives entirely. Thousands of families were thrust into mourning without a body to bury. Many more were shaken not by personal grief but by worries about their jobs in an economy that now seemed likely to slide into recession–or by an intolerable sense of vulnerability. Chris Campbell and his wife, Sheryl, had moved to New York in 2000. He was a popular public-school teacher; she worked across the street from the Twin Towers. Neither one was hurt, but their apartment in lower Manhattan was sealed off after the blast, and a few days later they packed up their things and drove back to the Midwest.
John and Alice Sabl, who live on the 72d floor of the 100-story John Hancock Center in Chicago, have no intention of moving. They have had to adjust to a new routine, though, as security tightens in their high-rise. Every time they drive into the garage, their car trunk is checked. The main drawback about this, according to John Sabl, is mortification to find that their trunk is messier than others. America’s new normalcy is apt to include a hundred such nuisances.
Americans will put up with them, just as they have put up with the spectacle of David Letterman, the nation’s ironist-in-chief, on the verge of tears. This is not to say that Letterman’s emotions were not genuine, or that he was wrong to strike a note of compassion at the delicate moment when his program returned to the air. But it would be a sad distortion of national normalcy if he and his fellow comics were now expected to emote regularly on the tube. They also serve who help us laugh again.
The entertainment industry in general seemed to be groping for the “correct” response to September 11, fearful of any sign of insensitivity. This led to some strange countercurrents. Hollywood was anxiously re-editing new movies to delete any shots of the Twin Towers, even as street vendors in New York did a booming business in paintings, photographs and T shirts that featured the doomed skyscrapers. Any effort to impose a new puritanism would be as misguided as it is futile–part of the nation’s healing process lies along the pathways of diversion. Just as happy music follows the dirges in a New Orleans street funeral, gradually some good cheer returned to life. In New York on the second Saturday after the attacks, it was inspiring to pass firehouses decked with flowers and crowded with people making donations to the bereaved. It was also inspiring, in a different way, to walk through Times Square at night and see the sidewalks jammed, the bars crowded and the gaudy lights undimmed.
Great atrocities are totalitarian: they bend everyone to a standard response. Any failure of fervency, any note played out of national tune can condemn the sinner to outer darkness. At a time like this, the voices of dissent tend to be shouted down in the celebration of unity. It was therefore heartening, even if one disagreed, to hear civil libertarians warning against too broad an extension of police power and old radicals like Noam Chomsky blaming the rise of terrorism on America. Their protests, too, are part of American normalcy.
In the aftermath of September 11, it became fashionable to say, “Nothing will ever be the same.” That isn’t true. The hyperbole is understandable: the sudden sacrifice of thousands of lives seemed to demand a corresponding measure of sacrifice among the rest of us. Sacrifices there will be, as the president has made clear. But not the sacrifice of America’s essential spirit or its way of life. There are many strands in the national fiber. Bold ones like heroism and solidarity and sense of purpose, which were on such impressive display after the attack. And also more modest ones, like individuality, humor, frivolity and fun. These more playful American traits may be on temporary furlough. But they will be back, and soon, because terrorists could not possibly destroy them. America is getting back to normal, and we will know it is there when once again we hear that still, small voice asking, anybody know where to get a great new pair of shoes?
