Musings....
Yesterday, a lot of my friends in the US were thinking about the earth-shattering event that has come to be known as nine-eleven, or 9/11.
Being a UK resident, I have no personal connection to anything that happened that day, besides the fact that I will never forget where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it.
Very much the same for a vast majority of people when John Lennon was murdered. You never forget something like that.
I clocked in for my shift at the supermarket about fifteen minutes before it happened, so I was unaware. I was restocking the fish fridge - with fish sticks of all things - when one of the customers came up and struck up a conversation with me about how terrorists had bombed the World Trade Centre.
The severity of it didn't hit me till later, when I went upstairs to the canteen in search of one of the Personnel staff. I was six months pregnant at the time, and had come to the conclusion that I was going to have to bite the bullet and get some maternity clothes.
Fiona was finishing up her break, so I hung around in the canteen. Half the management, and some of the general staff, were huddled around the television, so I watched too.
The realisation of what had actually happened was quite startling.
I tried to put it out of my mind for the rest of the shift, though it was the topic du jour that night, but when I got home, my son's father was glued to CNN, watching the coverage.
Neither of us could look away.
Both towers had gone by this time, but I was watching the coverage when the building over the road finally gave up and collapsed too. I remember feeling very scared about the kind of world I was bringing my son into.
It's not much of a story, but I wanted to get it down on record, for myself maybe? For my son to read when he's older? I don't know.
I don't expect anyone to respond - no reason why anyone should.
Being a UK resident, I have no personal connection to anything that happened that day, besides the fact that I will never forget where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it.
Very much the same for a vast majority of people when John Lennon was murdered. You never forget something like that.
I clocked in for my shift at the supermarket about fifteen minutes before it happened, so I was unaware. I was restocking the fish fridge - with fish sticks of all things - when one of the customers came up and struck up a conversation with me about how terrorists had bombed the World Trade Centre.
The severity of it didn't hit me till later, when I went upstairs to the canteen in search of one of the Personnel staff. I was six months pregnant at the time, and had come to the conclusion that I was going to have to bite the bullet and get some maternity clothes.
Fiona was finishing up her break, so I hung around in the canteen. Half the management, and some of the general staff, were huddled around the television, so I watched too.
The realisation of what had actually happened was quite startling.
I tried to put it out of my mind for the rest of the shift, though it was the topic du jour that night, but when I got home, my son's father was glued to CNN, watching the coverage.
Neither of us could look away.
Both towers had gone by this time, but I was watching the coverage when the building over the road finally gave up and collapsed too. I remember feeling very scared about the kind of world I was bringing my son into.
It's not much of a story, but I wanted to get it down on record, for myself maybe? For my son to read when he's older? I don't know.
I don't expect anyone to respond - no reason why anyone should.