Unlike some other folks, I've decided I don't like referring to the events of September 11, 2001 as the Current Situation. It sounds too clinical to me. It's as if we're unable to acknowledge the horror of what happened by referring to it in such a detached manner. And situation? I'm not optimistic enough to believe this is only a situation or a temporary state. I've found myself, in both words and thoughts, referring to it as That Day. As in, "it hasn't been sunny since That Day." Or, "We haven't been downtown since That Day." But it would be hypocritical of me to pass off something as vague as That Day after dismissing Current Situation.
When I was younger and I learned about Kristallnacht in school, I had a hard time understanding just how horrible it was. The name sounded so beautiful to me, "Night of Broken Glass." I pictured tiny shards of shimmery glass everywhere, filling the streets like diamonds, piles of glass twinkling in the moonlight. Only later did I fully understand what transpired during that night, only when I was older did I understand there was nothing magical about Kristallnacht.
Like that night in Germany, something terrible has happened and I wish I had the words to refer to it properly. I wish I had a name for this Current Situation, I wish I had some other way to relate to that moment in time when everything flipped upside-down, to That Day when everything changed.