Tzitzis and Tefillin at Mincha on Tisha B'Av

I anticipated that it would feel weird and I would feel bereft by not wrapping tefillin and praying with a tallis at shacharis on Tisha B'Av - and I was right - the lack of gathering tzitzis from the four corners of tallis in the blessing before the Shema and holding them together for the Shema and into the blessing after indeed underlined the fragmentation the day mourns, including the fragmentation of oneself and the fragmentation of the relationship between G!d and the Jewish people.

But what I was not prepared for was the weird sense of alienation wearing the tallis and tefillin at Mincha would bring. The Shema is not recited at Mincha, and so the gathering together of the tzitzis did not occur - nor were any of the passages from the Torah about tefillin or tzitzis recited. Wearing them felt mostly empty and bereft of the meaning that recitation of these passages, gathering the tzitzis together, and touching the tefillin at their metion give to wearing them. So wearing them at Mincha helped ritualize the continued mourning, albeit more subdued mourning than the night and morning of Tisha B'Av.