Mercer, May I?

Here I sit in bed (though I should be reading and preparing for class in the morning), and I find myself reflecting upon what happened on this day ten years ago and what it all means now. I bet you’re thinking you’re about to get a typical tear-jerking rendition about where I was when it  happened, how I felt standing in front of the television watching it unfold…

You know, it’s funny…of course, not funny like a clown (which I don’t think is funny at all anyway), but more like funny unexpected…Anywho, I’m thinking about being back in Saint Lucia on our honeymoon.  (Yes, really.)  We arrived on the island just weeks after a devastating hurricane, and still, I swear, we found that Saint Lucians are the happiest damned people we’ve ever encountered. They’re genuinely happy just to be alive.  I remember being out one day with our tour guide, Christian.  Joey and I asked him loads of questions.  He told us about the island; he told us about his wife and his daughter (who happens to be in college in New York); he gushed over how much he loves country music…    We asked him about people relocating to Saint Lucia to live, how the natives feel about people coming there to retire…   He looked at me like I had a penis growing out of my forehead  was crazy, and he said something that stuck with me.  He said, “When you come here to live, you are Saint Lucian. We are all Saint Lucian.”

I study public administration daily.  I read the news reports.   I even throw fuel on the fire of some debates.   And our freedoms and liberties  afforded to us by the Constitution enable me to do those things.  The United States is a great and beautiful country with liberties and opportunities of which other peoples only dream, yet, generally speaking, the American people seem to have become more selfish, ungrateful, and divided over the last decade.  So…did the terrorists win?  Have they crushed the American spirit?

It almost seems like anything I could say today would just seem trite, but I will say this: we could learn something from the Saint Lucians – to have a DELIGHTFUL SPIRIT and to come together in a UNITED purpose.  Aside from saying a little prayer for those who are still grieving, how will I observe 9/11?  Personally, I’m just going to delight in this day – go to school, watch some football, eat some chili, and be thankful for my freedom and all the little things that are often taken for granted. During these troubled times, we really should find more delight and reason enough to come together – after all, we are all Americans.  I love my beautifully hectic life.  The American spirit is something that really can’t be taken away…not from me, anyway.