HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED the way history has of creating time warps?
While looking for some background on an alumna this afternoon, I stumbled on a copy of The Mount for Fall/Winter 2001. On the magazine cover was a small group of people holding candles. The headline said, "Prayers for Peace: The Mount Responds to the Events of Sept. 11."
I'm having as much trouble as the next person (over the age of 25, anyway) grasping that 9/11 happened 10 years ago. It seemed even harder to believe when I looked at the photograph and noticed Laura Gomez, assistant Campus Ministry director, among the group photographed in Mercy Chapel ten years ago this week. (Back row, center.)
At noon today, I attended the short prayer service in the Circle remembering the victims of 9/11. One of the leaders was none other than Laura Gomez. It was a convergence, a flash-forward that seemed to make the last decade disappear.
Like many archivists I tend to focus on the old stuff. The 2000s don't seem like history yet. But they are. Archives are able to enshrine events in a way that brings them to life in a rush, as a 10-year-old copy of a magazine will attest.
The Mount Archives has a complete run of The Mount magazine from 1982-present.