The morning’s first rays of sunshine pour throughout the four walls of the music room from where I sit quietly on the couch. Slivers of light are painted on the pale wooden floor and the flowered oriental carpet, while above me a circle of jewels shimmer across the ceiling from a reflection of the gold piano lamp, rested comfortably on the surface of the black baby grand. The area is unbelievably quiet, a setting of peace and tranquility when so often it is a stage for noise and chaos. Savoring the silence and the warmth of sunbeams on my face from the window nearby, I close my eyes slowly and tell myself that is time.
In the next few hours I have to somehow take the images and thoughts floating around my mind like colorful butterflies and place them on paper, somehow bringing understanding to their beauty, and meaning to their fluttering wings. This week though it will be even more difficult, after such horrific events that have transpired since that fateful Tuesday, how can anyone define what emotions and ideas they are feeling at this time? Furthermore, what can I, little Daria Knight possibly add to that of what has already been said by President Bush, Mayor Juliani, the Pope, the British Prime Minister, as well as the hundreds of others that have boldly spoken to the nation to stir up courage and dedication to our country? To not reflect upon this tragedy would be insensitive, unfeeling to those who have been affected, which inevitably is any American, but yet where can I start? Words can’t explain the terror, the nightmarish scenes, and the devastation brought by the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
And then, like a gift of divine inspiration from above, I see it. Some unanimous member of the family with several pieces of crude, jagged duct tape has fixed a small flag onto the window. With streams of light seeping beneath its fabric, it seems to glow as if its stripes are on fire. Never before as has such a vision of the American flag brought so much beauty to those looking upon it.
I look at it carefully, gazing at the symbol for America that has never brought so much meaning to my country since the days of its birth. As a child in elementary school, I was taught about its simple meaning; the fifty stars for the fifty states, the red stripes for the blood that was shed during the revolution, and the white for purity. Yet at this moment it seems to represent so much more.
The flag before me, no wind to billow its cloth erect has folded almost directly in half, rays of the autumn sun cascading through it into the room causing it to appear almost transparent. The stripes have somehow mixed together now, creating an endless crisscross of thick lines, as if they are woven together tightly. From studying the Puritans so diligently in high school through out the past two weeks, at this amazing sight an excerpt from a famous sermon given by John Winthrop instantly comes to mind. “For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection.”
Then, it hits me. Just like our forefathers who settled this country almost four hundred years ago, we have begun to strive harder than ever to follow this important principle for the past week. Since the four attacks by unknown terrorists, America presently has once again been knit together in brotherly affection. You see it in the hundreds of flags positioned on houses, the antennas and rearview mirrors of automobiles, offices, and even trees. You see it in the unyielding faces of rescue workers who refuse to rest for fear they might miss someone still able to breathe beneath the wreckage of what once was the World Trade Center. This sense of brotherhood has been found on the determined expressions of those waiting for hours in lines at hospitals to donate blood for the wounded, and the families who through school drives and church organizations have willingly given food, work gloves, and socks to the fireman, doctors, and police officers of New York City.
Families in the area have been bound together in love as well, from the unwavering commuters who walked across the George Washington Bridge to return to their loved ones when transportation was no longer available to fathers now seen in the afternoon at nearby street corners waiting for their sons and daughters to hop off the steps of the school bus, so that they can swoop them up lovingly in their arms and laugh with them as they happily walk home. With thousands of offices condemned or otherwise in ruins, it has been reminded of what is truly important in life.
The hijackers who used our education to receive pilots licenses and our planes as flying bombs meant to bring destruction to not only symbols of our country’s pride, but to our nationalism as well. Though like the flag peacefully laying across the window, America has folded a different way. Instead of being separated into confusion, united we stand. Like the vision of these stripes forever connected together in front of my eyes, our hands have been interlaced in support and devotion. We as a people have become one imperishable mass of love, patriotism, and courage that cannot be conquered. In the additional words of John Winthrop, “God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies.” Place a flag somewhere visible, and consider it sacred, for it is all we are now and all we ever hope to be. God bless America!
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