The United 93 viewing that didn't transpire

On Friday it was the 25th anniversary of 9/11. I'm sure you heard it mentioned somewhere. 

As anniversaries go, this was "the big one." Won't be another one this big until 2051. 

I did think of trying to honor the anniversary with a viewing of the best 9/11 movie, and one of my favorites of the whole first decade of this century, United 93. I fished around for it on the streaming services, coming up empty. I even checked Disney+ of all places. It was not there.

If I had found it, I might have put it on while I worked in the afternoon. That wouldn't have been a great way to really engage with that movie, of course, but I've seen it three other times, so it wouldn't have been the greatest of insults either. 

But I guess I decided paying for it was the dividing line between trying to fit it in and not trying to fit it in. And it's not because I'm pinching pennies at the moment. It was just a measure of how much I wanted to revisit that day, maybe.

Or maybe how much I wanted to immerse myself in anything American right now.

For another two years, we are under the stranglehold of Donald Trump. I assume that after the midterm elections it will be a significantly compromised version of Donald Trump, but that could only make him more dangerous. More likely to lash out.

And of course he has to make 9/11 about himself. The latest is this ridiculous thing about how he was at ground zero and how two firefighters had to lift him up and run him away from danger. As if. I have an actual friend who was at ground zero in his capacity as an EMT and actually had to run away from both buildings as they fell, first one then the other. I'll ask him if he saw Trump that day, but I know what the answer will be. 

But even if we set aside the current state of American politics, maybe there's something else I'm thinking here.

Maybe the best way to remember 9/11 is to not remember it.

And I don't mean to forget it. I don't mean not to think about where you were that day, or how your sense of dormant patriotism was unironically activated, or how many consecutive hours of TV you watched. I come back to those things at random times anyway.

I mean to spare it a passing thought, but then to have a normal day of work, a walk after work, and a double feature of movies that couldn't have anything less to do with it: Coyote vs. Acme and a viewing of the movie Obex on a second consecutive night.

That's what I'm telling myself anyway.