One year ago, as the flights that would make history took off from Boston, Newark and Washington, the first copies of this newspaper's Sept. 11, 2001, edition were hitting campus.
And on this page, readers found an editorial decrying the University's poor planning of the renovation of the bridge over 38th Street.
Obviously, the width of the walkway on that bridge seemed terribly trivial after 8:46 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the World Trade Center.
That is not to say that, on its own terms, the safety of the bridge was not a legitimate concern. But the absurd juxtaposition of that editorial and the horrific events happening in our neighbors to the north and south is as good an example as any of how our world changed that day.
Things that were bad on Sept. 10 were still bad -- they just seemed so much less bad. Sept. 11 shattered the way we perceived the world and created an entirely new reality -- a reality that included everything that preceded the disaster but put it onto a new scale and into a new perspective.
It is impossible to prescribe a "right" way to cope with the anniversary of Sept. 11. That terrible day one year ago was of such magnitude and consequence that it affects every person in a profoundly different way. And it still reverberates throughout our lives.
As it will for years to come. Sept. 11 provides a context -- a monumental and difficult one, to be sure, but a context all the same -- for all the things that suddenly seemed to lose their importance that day.
It's a context we're still struggling to learn how to deal with, to cope with and to live in.
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