In their words: Elisabeth Anderson

What were you doing that day, and what was the immediate reaction from everyone at your school?

So it was a normal school day, as far as we were concerned. I guess when I first heard of it, one of my friends who's from Mexico came running up to me, between classes, heading into one class, and he hugged me and he said, “I'm so sorry.” And I was like, “What for?” You know, I had no idea what he was talking about. And so, we went to English class together and when he informed my teacher, there was this sudden, "Wait, what did you just say?" And there was this, I don't know, sort of shock and a realization like something bigger than, you know, Shakespeare's happening. I know that's hard to believe. But my teacher ran and checked the internet. We all sort of crowded around his laptop, and we saw the headlines on CNN: you know, like, “Thousands feared dead,” “Terror strikes America.” And I remember receiving like the warmest reaction from the most international students. You know, there are probably 18 to 20 countries represented in the student body. And so my Chinese friends and my Mexican friends, they were the ones who immediately physically hugged us and whatnot. And that was before the second tower came down, so that was just when the north tower was hit,

Realizing that something major was happening, my teacher then brought us to somewhere with a communal TV — this was pre-cell phones, which were a luxury for most people. I was still using calling cards to call into the U.S. So we're in this communal room, packed, watching live news, and then we saw the second plane flying to the second tower. And we were just shocked. And there was this awe and quiet because nobody really knew how to respond, adults or students alike. But one comment that stood out to me was one of my best friends. She was the Head of School's daughter, and she said the nastiest, most awful thing. And looking back, this is probably how she dealt with grief and shock. But, you know, she sort of scoffed and said, “America, you know, got what it deserved.” And I remember thinking like, “Oh, like, did we deserve this?” You know, is this something that can be deserved? And then they ushered us, all of the Americans, into this other space where we were allowed to call our parents, because they sealed the border, and so we were sort of stuck where we were, and all parents were kind of frantic. You know, so that's kind of the overview, minus some details, but I'm sure you'll inquire.

So how old were you when this happened?

I was 12, a little before my 13th birthday, so eighth grade.

How did you and your fellow classmates act after you guys realized you were stuck there? How could you as, a 12-year-old living in Canada, truly understand what happened in your country?

Oh my gosh. And I mean, the short answer is that we couldn't. You know, for a lot of us, this was the first trauma on a global scale. And, you know, some people cried. I remember not being able to feel much. I was just so numb, you know, and trying to, trying to sort of navigate this, like, strangeness.. and it was so quiet. Nobody knew what to do. And there's a great Richard Powers quote that I found much later, perhaps only years ago. He talks about how there wasn't a language to talk about what had happened, because we're trying to compare, or we use comparison to kind of understand our current situation. And then I was trying to think of anything, you know, and on the same scale. I mean, my biggest disappointment [up to that point] was probably like, I didn't get a pony for my birthday. Like I... I had nothing to compare this to. So I don't think any of us knew how to react. Some wept. I think most of us were pretty quiet. We were stunned silent.

You were obviously at an age where many things would influence you, your future, and your personality... How do you think 9/11 affected your young adult life to adult life?

That's a great question. . . . I feel like when there's an initial trauma like that it sort of shakes the foundation. I guess there's most impact made to the foundation. So my worldview was completely shattered. I had been so sheltered, and so gentle and kind, always, that something like this, you know, it seemed unconscionable. It seemed, or it was, unconscionable... it seemed unimaginable. And so, going forward, I think, the bottom fell out. When your worldview and the truth you hold, especially as a young person who's full of hope and optimism and enthusiasm and all of those things, the first instance where you become jaded or those worldviews are challenged, or slashed... everything falls apart. You know, you start to question any absolute that you once held. I mean faith, truth, morality, family, anything like that. You start to question everything you know, because the world is turned upside down.

Did you stay at that international school for all of high school?

I was there from grade seven through 10. So age 11 to 14 or so. And for a lot of it, I was a day student. So I had been going, you know, back and forth over the border, twice or four times a day for a number of years. So pretty much as soon as they unlocked the border, I went home. My parents and my mom... I think she came and picked me up. So I was probably only stuck there for probably, I don't know, 10-12 hours or so. . . . But I did go back. And I continued there, and it was pretty... it was pretty unnerving. I think more so for my parents and for me, because the scope of it still didn't register.

As you grew up, did you see... Were you unable to be friends with these international students the same way as before because they didn't really experience it the same way you did?

Right. Again, you know, great question. I think my international friends, they were the most empathetic and the most sympathetic. . . . The international students there...there's something more worldly about them. You know they've been beyond their homes, they're living away, you know, and had kind of learned to navigate uncertain waters before, perhaps not on this scale, but I mean, they knew how to set their alarm clocks and brush their teeth without being told. You know, they had some sort of preparation. Yeah, I don't know. Sorry, what did you ask though? I got off track.

Was there ever a disconnect between you and your friends just because they didn't understand or like, didn't have to deal with it like you did?

Right, definitely with my Canadian friends, right. A lot of them sort of they were so anti-American, they hated pretty much everything about us. They thought we were sort of pompous and loud and overly conceited in everything we did, but then one of my... actually the teacher whose classroom I walked into upon hearing about the attacks, he said he noticed that this was kind of getting to us — because it went on for months and months after the attack. And he said, “They're only jealous because Canada is the apartment above a really cool party.” And I remember it sticking with me and I was like, “Okay, we're alright.” But yeah, my Canadian friends were, I think, the least sympathetic, and my American friends were the most. Actually, my oldest brother (he was at the school, too, before he graduated)... as soon as the news broke about the attacks — ugh it's going to make me cry — but Mohammed, one of my brother's best friends, he's from Syria, and he's a practicing Muslim. And in a time when a Middle Eastern Muslim man was was sort of America's enemy, he called my brother and said, “I love you. I'm so sorry. And I'm here for you in any way.” I remember that being such an impactful moment. And so when a lot of the sort of the nasty racism kicked in, we had this buffer because we knew, we lived with Middle Eastern people; we lived with these people wearing hijabs and praying five times a day. I don't know, I've never actually talked about this.

That's what a lot of people say, like, this is like the first time they've ever talked about it since.

Yeah, yeah. But it was strange, and then in the coming weeks and months a lot of the teachers, they weren't that supportive. It was like, “Okay, great. It's over. Let's move on with things.” And they got right to, you know, bashing America. Every political move, everything President Bush said, they're like, “Eat another pretzel,” and they were so anti everything that it was, I don't know, just demoralizing. But as a young person, as an eighth grader, you internalize it, and you think, okay, maybe there is something inherently flawed because it's something I can't control, which is the place in which I was born.

How did your experience with patriotism form your views? You were saying it influenced what you thought about the American way — that you couldn't control where you lived, and the you almost felt you were being attacked. How did that change your views on politics and other topics?

I think more than anything is, I learned endurance. You know, I learned to be gritty, even though I didn't know that's what I was learning. I was so much more resilient than I understood I was becoming. But I mean, it was wild. The school would bring in people who wrote for newspapers and people who are on Canadian TV, and they would come in, and I mean, pardon my French, they would just shit all over America. Then at the end, people would give them standing ovations and it was strange, but it did... I think it gave me incredible resilience. And you learn to be tough, and you learn that you can love and be friends with someone who has the complete opposite view, someone who openly hates you, who says to your face, “No offense, but America is, you know, the worst,” or whatever other sort of vindictive, malicious, lovely things they said on a regular basis. Everything in class, every example, in history and math, whatever... it was always some barb at life in America. So more than anything toughness, I think.

So, do you think your experience with hatred resulted in more patriotism for your country?

I think initially, patriotism — it was sort of the knee jerk reaction, right? We're under attack and we have to sort of come together and fight this. You know, this invisible, amorphous thing. I remember watching, and you probably know the video I'm talking about, when, at the time President Bush threw out that first pitch, do you remember that moment? Even now, I have goosebumps, and I don't even like baseball that much. But it was, you know, it was such an incredible representation, I think, of the country, like, “Okay, we're gonna be okay.” Patriotism was definitely on the rise. I'm from Northern Vermont, so twangy, country songs were really in. And there was one [Toby Keith] song that was like, “We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.” And then some other song... it was like, "Have you forgotten?" It was some morbid, country something. And all the trucks in the area — because I'm not from like the sushi-eating, Volvo-driving Vermont, I'm from like, you know, “Deliverance” Vermont. A driver has a pickup truck and you know, a gun slung behind them. And all the trucks had like, "Get 'er done" painted all over everything.

So I didn't realize that you had that you traveled from your home in Vermont to the school in Canada everyday. Did you see a big difference within those communities that you lived in, every day?

Oh, yeah. And I’m mostly so grateful to my parents for understanding the importance of diversity in education. And, you know, because where I'm from in Vermont . . . it's a very different lifestyle there. A lot of people are extremely poor, but it's a French Catholic sort of agrarian community. It has since shifted, but I mean, I think we were the only Republican county in Vermont. I think we're the only pocket who voted against the rest of the state. . . . We have a bunch of churches, you know, I think there's three Catholic churches in a four-mile radius. And when I was in Canada, it was so different, right? I remember hearing different views on like, I mean, politics of course, but like abortion and gay marriage and these now... I guess they're still buzzwords for some people (actually, probably still some people from where I'm from), but I learned so much that I guess I learned to see the dignity and the humanity in everyone.

And at first, it's jarring. It's unsettling to hear that everything that you believe — like I was an altar server. I saved Easter one time, because I was, like, the only altar server. So my views were so conservative and very much innocent and so naive. And I think those two go together, obviously, if they're not redundant. But in Canada, yeah, people knew what was up. They read more, they had seen more. And I think the international population really helped sort of broaden my worldview and deepen my empathy.

So as you got older and you started realizing all the reforms that came after 9/11, what were your political opinions about those? And did they differ from the international students?

My political views at that point were simply parroted from what I heard in my very small, conservative community. At that point, when I was 12, I don't think I could tell you the difference between the political parties. I probably knew more about Canadian history than American history, anyways. So I think I didn't have any views other than what I was told to believe.

My views differed from the Canadians and from the international students, because they thought about things like economies, they thought about things, I don't know, like, disease spread, taxation, a trade route. They thought about things that were so much bigger than anything I had thought about. And so yeah, my conservative world views were like, holy smokes, totally different from the liberal and sometimes leftist views of the others. I felt very much alone.

What do you remember most from the day? You know, you've heard that everyone who was in New York or just living in the United States remembers how beautiful of a day it was.. What do you remember most?

It was. It was a stunning day, even in southern Quebec. I mean, it was beautiful. I mean, so warm, sunny. The kind you hope for in September. I was excited to play soccer that afternoon, like I'm not gonna sweat that much. And that was... it was such a shock. And I think, like I said, at the time, there were no suitable words or phrases. Now we refer to it in such a familiar way. This is what stood out to me. Do you mind if I share a quote with you that's helped me kind of make sense of things?

So I accidentally dealt with 9/11 and living through it when I was teaching a poetry class at my old school.

[Elizabeth shares a quote by Richard Powers that she found much later after 9/11. It helped her process the unrecognizable things she was dealing with at the time.]

"When the first stunted descriptions came, they came in a flood of similes. The shock of the attack was like Pearl Harbor. The gutted financial district was like Nagasaki. Lower Manhattan was like a city after an earthquake. The gray people streaming northward up the island, covered in an inch of ash were like the buried at Pompei. And then this outpouring of anemic simile again and again with startling little variation. People resorted to the most chilling refrain like a movie."

But this is the part that stood out particularly. Powers says, "There are no words. But there are only words. To say what the inconceivable resembles is all that we have by way of learning how it might be outlived. No comparison can say what happened to us. But we can start with the ruins of our similes and let "like" move us towards something larger, more understanding of what "is." And that was, I think, something that finally helped everything make sense. But there are so many videos and images, you just live it over and over again.

And there was nothing — we couldn't say anything about it. Like, “Remember Tuesday? That was weird.” But then some students would disappear because they had to go to funerals and what not. But life went on.

So we've been talking about the importance of art and music after major events, and what you’ve been saying is very interesting. Can you elaborate on your relationship with your writing and how it shaped the healing process for you?

Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes the only reaction to trauma is art, and I think from like a personal perspective, our only purpose is to make art. And I think we do it in an infinite amount of ways, whether it's getting dressed or writing or creating sculptures or something like that more formally. I mean, writing is how you air it all out. For me writing is, I mean, it's the most essential thing — obviously, as an English teacher — but it's a constant seeking of community, right? It's this constant reminder that everything that's happened has kind of happened before, even in moments like this, when we can't compare it to anything. It becomes the new baseline for comparison. And I think, I mean, I think writing and making art, like as you referred to earlier, is a necessity, like breathing. We have to make art to help process everything inside of us. I think we're mere humans. It's hard, it's hard to communicate everything that we're feeling. But if we can create a representation of it, then we've done essentially what we do with words, just visually. But yeah, it's a huge, huge component in my life that is intertwined between literature, art, and trauma. And I think they're essential to each other.

If you don't mind me asking, when did you start really dealing with your emotions? Like, when did you find that quote? And when did you really start understanding what had happened?

Yeah, it's funny. I think I found that quote when I was teaching a poetry class at the Kent School. It was actually in a time of extreme trauma. We had a terrible, terrible suicide on campus. . . . What happens with the unexpressable? We had to write poetry and had to sort of produce something, but how do we go about doing it? And so, like I mentioned before I sort of found that [Bowers quote] accidentally. It was probably, you know, three-ish years ago. I was like, “Yeah, right. That's it. We don't have language for this,” you know? And actually, there's a Kurt Vonnegut quote too where he says, "History is essentially just a series of surprises." He says, “Essentially, we're just preparing for the next surprise.” I think there's a lot of truth to that. So when you always expect that other shoe to fall, you can sort of live at ease knowing that something crazy is going to happen. And that might be counterintuitive, but that's sort of how I've embodied trauma, etc.

What has been like the most lasting effect on your life, up until now, about 9/11? And like, you don't need to think far into this; I'm sure some people would say airport security. It could be something so minimal like that.

I think the thing that's most lasting is, I guess, like how temporary we are... essentially how small we are. For so many people, you know, this was an ordinary Tuesday, you know, life as usual. And for some of the other people it was like, you know, the last day, but for us, it was this premeditated day, it was like, this is target day, and they were living up to it. And so I think it's important to understand the randomness of it all. I think it made me a bit of a fatalist. You know, a lot of people expressed fear like getting on planes or, you know, going out doing something risky. I think it has made me a fatalist. We're gonna die at some point, right. We don't know when, probably. So you can either live into that sort of unknown or you can sort of shut down and live in that unknown. So I think that's the most lasting impression. Right? [sarcastically] It's all fucked.

I'm just curious. Have you been to the memorial in New York?

So I haven't, no. My brothers have — my brothers live in New York. I'm, I haven't gone, I've had the opportunity to, but I don't know, I don't like crying in public that much. I know it would have that sort of emotional toll. But it's on my list, it's on my list.

We went and traveled to New York with the class. And we've talked about this before, how it's very hard for we students to — I was born a month after it happened and Dani was a year after, so it's hard for us to conceptualize something as traumatic as this, but we all thought they did such a wonderful job at the museum. Obviously, if you think it's too emotionally pulling, you shouldn't go, but if you get the chance, it really is a well-made museum.

Thank you so much. And like I said, it's on the list. You know, I don't think we should sort of fear feelings, you know, and emotion, but we do. But they're okay. They're part of the whole thing. One day, I will get there.