Thursday, September 11, 2003

It Took Us So Much Longer To Get Back

Wandering through the blogs of Fall 2001, I am struck by many things I'd forgotten. First, just as I had experienced after earthquakes when I lived in LA, it takes a long time to get back to feeling anything like "safe" -- there are so many aftershocks. Reading pages from 9/11, I want to warn the characters in the drama about that crazy autumn they were about to live through and what we all had in store.

About the anthrax craziness. About the weirdly warm, warm, beautiful East Coast weather that kept going on and on, if you remember, just a fluke, until nearly December. I remember it, because my dad fell and broke his hip on December 2 in his driveway, which was not at all cold, icy or difficult to navigate. I remember all of us in my family commenting on that -- how could he slip and fall and hurt himself so badly, when simply shuffling out to get the mail on a very warm December day with a perfectly clean driveway. This fall was the beginning of the end and he left in an ambulance that day, never to be back in his house.

I was at my son's school on September 11th with 5 other moms planning a nature program called "The Big Backyard" where parent volunteers took classes out to study the woods around the school. We were in the cafeteria and we overheard the bilingual cooks getting all crazy about something that had happened in New York. We got a really confusing report in half English and then one of the moms went to the school office to find out the real story. As Bill Seitz said below ... it really was surreal.

The weather was stellar that day. Just beautiful. About a week later there was an equally beautiful day and I remember waking up, looking at the lovely weather, feeling happy for a few nanoseconds and then a rush of fear went through me -- gorgeous September weather and danger had some how bonded in my mind. Autumn leaves and terror all mixed up in my mind.

That year, I remember feeling the fall lasted for about 5 years and then finally it was Christmas. I prayed for winter. Finally it came and you could hide under a blanket of snow and maybe feel safe for a minute. I remember thinking, "We made it to Christmas, Thank God." We really didn't know what was in store next. I felt I gasped in September and only let out my breath towards the end of December.