I was driving home from a therapy session in Columbus. The attacks happened during my session, so we were oblivious and I had a good session. I always took some time at the start of the drive home to process what we'd just done, and thank goodness. Because on that day, once I turned on NPR, the session was driven from my mind. Scott Simon was the main announcer, I think. Not much was known about what happened at first, but it unfolded as I drove. I couldn't really believe what I was hearing, of course.
Luckily, I stopped at home before heading to the office, because a coworker had left a message that everyone was sent home. There were also messages from my parents, wanting to be sure I was home okay. I was a little baffled that they'd really worry about me, seeing as I was just driving home from Columbus. But then, I still don't know what that protective parental feeling is like.
I watched TV for a little while, and still sometimes regret it. The image of the planes hitting the towers, and them falling, comes up clearly in my mind even now. Before long I knew I'd really seen all the footage there was to see, and switched by to my favorite news source, NPR.
I'm really glad that I didn't know until now that the Pennsylvania plane came that close to Pittsburgh. It never occurred to me, oddly enough. Maybe I saw a map of the state and thought the distance longer. Regardless, with so many people I care about in Pitt, I'm glad that I had no idea about that. Frank did email me, worried because he knew I'd planned to go to New York some time around then. It was upstate NY about a month earlier, but the concern was appreciated nonetheless. I do remember being profoundly glad that the initial estimates of 25,000 or so dead dropped so dramatically. The toll was way too high, but it could have been so much higher.
If I'm not mistaken, I was single at the time. My memories of Dan are murky now, but I'm fairly sure he wasn't living with me then. Tom would have had the TV on instead of agreeing to NPR, but I still would rather have had someone to cling to and talk to during all that.
It still scares the shit out of me that there are people out there who fanatically hate my nation, and whose fighting has no rules. I'm still a little afraid to fly, despite the fact that I sincerely doubt the next attack will bear any resemblance to the last, except for its unbelievability, unpredicatibility and its scale. In general, I saddens and scares me that there are fanatics of any race/color/creed out there, willing to plot and carry out atrocities because of intolerance. Only the sure knowledge that mankind has always, always been this way keeps me at all sane on the subject. It's a sad fact of humanity, there's nothing to do but accept that fact and do what I can to work against it in my own little world. I'm not as good as I'd like to be about not living in fear, though. I can only see that getting harder to fight as I have children to worry about too. Sometimes it's so easy for me to see how people literally go crazy with such thoughts.
My family (parents and brother) and I flew to Vegas that October for a 10-day family vacation. It was a wonderful trip (to National Parks, mostly) though I couldn't help but think of Vegas as a really big target of American decadence. In January, I flew to New York City for a conferece. Boy, was I glad to be on the ground! I had never noticed the Twin Towers enough to notice their absence. It was another year before I could handle visiting Ground Zero, which by then was just a hole in the ground. There was still an unbelievable amount of dust on a graveyard that was right beside the walkway we visitors had to use to see the site. I couldn't shake the feeling that that dust was all bits of people, and their lives. There were still pictures of the dead lining the fences, and the wooden walls of the walkway were heavily marked up with people's thoughts.
A new addition to my prayers since then is the fervent hope that people all over the world work to forward Good and counter Evil. And that everyone working for Good stays a few steps ahead of the others, to avert or at least minimize future disasters of any scale.
Luckily, I stopped at home before heading to the office, because a coworker had left a message that everyone was sent home. There were also messages from my parents, wanting to be sure I was home okay. I was a little baffled that they'd really worry about me, seeing as I was just driving home from Columbus. But then, I still don't know what that protective parental feeling is like.
I watched TV for a little while, and still sometimes regret it. The image of the planes hitting the towers, and them falling, comes up clearly in my mind even now. Before long I knew I'd really seen all the footage there was to see, and switched by to my favorite news source, NPR.
I'm really glad that I didn't know until now that the Pennsylvania plane came that close to Pittsburgh. It never occurred to me, oddly enough. Maybe I saw a map of the state and thought the distance longer. Regardless, with so many people I care about in Pitt, I'm glad that I had no idea about that. Frank did email me, worried because he knew I'd planned to go to New York some time around then. It was upstate NY about a month earlier, but the concern was appreciated nonetheless. I do remember being profoundly glad that the initial estimates of 25,000 or so dead dropped so dramatically. The toll was way too high, but it could have been so much higher.
If I'm not mistaken, I was single at the time. My memories of Dan are murky now, but I'm fairly sure he wasn't living with me then. Tom would have had the TV on instead of agreeing to NPR, but I still would rather have had someone to cling to and talk to during all that.
It still scares the shit out of me that there are people out there who fanatically hate my nation, and whose fighting has no rules. I'm still a little afraid to fly, despite the fact that I sincerely doubt the next attack will bear any resemblance to the last, except for its unbelievability, unpredicatibility and its scale. In general, I saddens and scares me that there are fanatics of any race/color/creed out there, willing to plot and carry out atrocities because of intolerance. Only the sure knowledge that mankind has always, always been this way keeps me at all sane on the subject. It's a sad fact of humanity, there's nothing to do but accept that fact and do what I can to work against it in my own little world. I'm not as good as I'd like to be about not living in fear, though. I can only see that getting harder to fight as I have children to worry about too. Sometimes it's so easy for me to see how people literally go crazy with such thoughts.
My family (parents and brother) and I flew to Vegas that October for a 10-day family vacation. It was a wonderful trip (to National Parks, mostly) though I couldn't help but think of Vegas as a really big target of American decadence. In January, I flew to New York City for a conferece. Boy, was I glad to be on the ground! I had never noticed the Twin Towers enough to notice their absence. It was another year before I could handle visiting Ground Zero, which by then was just a hole in the ground. There was still an unbelievable amount of dust on a graveyard that was right beside the walkway we visitors had to use to see the site. I couldn't shake the feeling that that dust was all bits of people, and their lives. There were still pictures of the dead lining the fences, and the wooden walls of the walkway were heavily marked up with people's thoughts.
A new addition to my prayers since then is the fervent hope that people all over the world work to forward Good and counter Evil. And that everyone working for Good stays a few steps ahead of the others, to avert or at least minimize future disasters of any scale.
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