because
The weather today is totally different. Right now it is 62 degrees F, gray and drizzly outside.
That day, it was so beautiful. I woke with my head full of cares, there were layoff rumors going around at work, other mundane things filling in the corners, the way they do every single morning. At the time I was working at A Major Telecommunications Company, in Arlington. Every morning I left my house around 7:30, drove to the Greenbelt Metro station, boarded a train around 8:00 to get me to the Ballston stop around 9:00, and the office was mere steps away from the stop. If I was running early, sometimes I'd go into XANDO for some kind of elaborately overpriced coffee drink. If I was running late, at least I didn't have to run blocks and blocks. That day, I think I was about on time.
Having gotten on the train at 8 a.m., I was cut off from news sources until I got into my cube. I'd read Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea on the train ride in. When I got in the office at 9 a.m., it was all just new, just happening, and no one knew yet. At least, no one seemed to know, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I sat down, I logged on. I checked email. I opened AIM, which we used at work. I logged onto Josh's mush. And that's when I heard. It was all sort of simultaneous. "Jen, did you hear?" popped up on the mush. At the same time, I started hearing words rising from the cubes around me, ordinary words made different that day by their worried repetition. "No, what, what happened?" I typed quickly. Explanations began. Each story was a little different.
Somehow at first I thought someone meant a little plane, like a Cessna, had crashed into the World Trade Center. An inexperienced pilot, I thought, wind shear, a terrible mistake. We were working for a powerful communications corporation but we couldn't communicate, really. All the websites were too slow to wait for - CNN, washingtonpost.com, MSNBC, none of them were coming up. The word was spreading. Folks on the mush fed me info (at least one person was in an office with a TV), and I relayed it to my coworkers who were still anxiously trying to load news pages. Then things started happening fast. A second plane, into the second tower. A big plane, a United plane, no accident, no Cessna, no wind shear. Things seemed surreal, especially when someone said, "They just hit the Pentagon."
My stomach tumbled, my heart ached, my spirits fell. Every cliche in the book. Arlington, I was in Arlington and the Pentagon, we had people there, it was not so far away. It was not so far away at all. What was happening? Finally someone remembered that there were TVs down on the second floor in the vendateria. We - most of us, anyway - went downstairs in a rush, taking the stairs, it was only a floor or two (were we on 3, or 4? I can't even remember). It seemed like everyone in the building was there, standing and sitting and staring. Not much talking. There were three or four TVs and each had a crowd. I sat on the floor near one. In between the last time we'd heard some new tidbit of information and when we'd gotten downstairs, the first tower had collapsed. CNN was talking, talking, but I didn't really hear it. There was a sort of cognitive disconnect for me, was this really happening outside, on this too-perfect blue-sky day?
The second tower collapsed then, while I watched, while so many of us watched, not knowing what to do or say. My jaw literally dropped. A few minutes later I realized my mouth was dry, because it was open, and I didn't believe my jaw had actually dropped in shock, surely that was just a figure of speech. I thought a lot about that reaction because I couldn't think about the sheer size of the destruction I had just seen.
In the corner of the screen they kept also showing the Pentagon.
I went back upstairs. I tried to call my Dad, not yet retired, working in D.C. at the Department of Education. The lines were of course completely unavailable. I tried to call my Mom, at work in the church office. Still no luck. Of course there wasn't, I should have realized, but I had to try anyway.
"You can see the smoke," someone said. People looked to the windows. "No, outside," the person clarified. "If you walk down a block you can see the smoke." Some people went outside to look. I didn't.
Finally my boss came around telling us that everyone but "essential personnel" could go home. Never had I been happier to be nonessential. I shot off a few emails to people telling them I was okay, I was going home, I would try to contact them when I got there. The Federal Government had also just been shut down for the day. "Everyone," I thought, "is going to be on the Metro."
As I walked down and out, the rumors were flying. There was a fire at the Gannett Building, only blocks away. It was a car bomb. There was a car parked outside the State Department. It was probably a car bomb. There were people milling on every corner, trying to see the smoke. I kept my head down. Everyone crowded down the escalators. No car bombs down here. No Metro rumors yet. Would they start? Would they be true? Would there be gas? Would it be quiet or loud? I didn't take my book out. I didn't get a seat, it was already crowded and we weren't into D.C. yet.
It was the most crowded I'd ever seen the Metro. It was Japanese-subway, "they use sticks to push people into the cars" crowded. But it was quiet. And people were kind. That was the strangest part. People talked quietly with others near them, but no one panicked, no one hollered, people made room and dealt with the close quarters. I played a game. I looked at my fellow passengers and tried to pick out people who seemed interesting, or attractive, or different - someone with a good story, maybe. I was thinking of people I might never meet. I was thinking of who I'd go to in a crisis. Did someone look more trustworthy? More experienced? Was anyone here a doctor?
Mainly it was quiet. I had a long way to go, Greenbelt being the end of the Green line. As we spilled out into the sunshine at the end of the line, I felt such relief. It was still such a nice day. I was home, or close to home. I drove home without issue and called my Mom. This time, I got through - she was at home. Dad was coming home too, obviously since the government had shut down, but Mom had talked to him and he was fine. I asked Mom to have Dad call me when he got in. I watched the TV, not thinking a whole lot, but not turning it off. Dad called, he was fine. "Great," I said. "I'm going to take a nap." And I did. I slept from maybe 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. It was mainly a ploy to avoid the television. There was just too much, too much to see and process, not to mention think about. I couldn't think about thinking about it.
When I got up, I felt more normalized. I turned the TV on, but could think about it now. I made contact with a few friends and some of us went to Jenna and Shawn's that night to watch the President's speech and drink wine and just be with each other. The next day I went back to work like always. Except nothing like always.
That night I worked my second job, at the box office at the Old Greenbelt theater. People were gathered in Roosevelt Square kind of like always. But then a plane flew overhead, and everyone ducked, or flinched. It wasn't like always.
That day, it was so beautiful. I woke with my head full of cares, there were layoff rumors going around at work, other mundane things filling in the corners, the way they do every single morning. At the time I was working at A Major Telecommunications Company, in Arlington. Every morning I left my house around 7:30, drove to the Greenbelt Metro station, boarded a train around 8:00 to get me to the Ballston stop around 9:00, and the office was mere steps away from the stop. If I was running early, sometimes I'd go into XANDO for some kind of elaborately overpriced coffee drink. If I was running late, at least I didn't have to run blocks and blocks. That day, I think I was about on time.
Having gotten on the train at 8 a.m., I was cut off from news sources until I got into my cube. I'd read Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea on the train ride in. When I got in the office at 9 a.m., it was all just new, just happening, and no one knew yet. At least, no one seemed to know, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I sat down, I logged on. I checked email. I opened AIM, which we used at work. I logged onto Josh's mush. And that's when I heard. It was all sort of simultaneous. "Jen, did you hear?" popped up on the mush. At the same time, I started hearing words rising from the cubes around me, ordinary words made different that day by their worried repetition. "No, what, what happened?" I typed quickly. Explanations began. Each story was a little different.
Somehow at first I thought someone meant a little plane, like a Cessna, had crashed into the World Trade Center. An inexperienced pilot, I thought, wind shear, a terrible mistake. We were working for a powerful communications corporation but we couldn't communicate, really. All the websites were too slow to wait for - CNN, washingtonpost.com, MSNBC, none of them were coming up. The word was spreading. Folks on the mush fed me info (at least one person was in an office with a TV), and I relayed it to my coworkers who were still anxiously trying to load news pages. Then things started happening fast. A second plane, into the second tower. A big plane, a United plane, no accident, no Cessna, no wind shear. Things seemed surreal, especially when someone said, "They just hit the Pentagon."
My stomach tumbled, my heart ached, my spirits fell. Every cliche in the book. Arlington, I was in Arlington and the Pentagon, we had people there, it was not so far away. It was not so far away at all. What was happening? Finally someone remembered that there were TVs down on the second floor in the vendateria. We - most of us, anyway - went downstairs in a rush, taking the stairs, it was only a floor or two (were we on 3, or 4? I can't even remember). It seemed like everyone in the building was there, standing and sitting and staring. Not much talking. There were three or four TVs and each had a crowd. I sat on the floor near one. In between the last time we'd heard some new tidbit of information and when we'd gotten downstairs, the first tower had collapsed. CNN was talking, talking, but I didn't really hear it. There was a sort of cognitive disconnect for me, was this really happening outside, on this too-perfect blue-sky day?
The second tower collapsed then, while I watched, while so many of us watched, not knowing what to do or say. My jaw literally dropped. A few minutes later I realized my mouth was dry, because it was open, and I didn't believe my jaw had actually dropped in shock, surely that was just a figure of speech. I thought a lot about that reaction because I couldn't think about the sheer size of the destruction I had just seen.
In the corner of the screen they kept also showing the Pentagon.
I went back upstairs. I tried to call my Dad, not yet retired, working in D.C. at the Department of Education. The lines were of course completely unavailable. I tried to call my Mom, at work in the church office. Still no luck. Of course there wasn't, I should have realized, but I had to try anyway.
"You can see the smoke," someone said. People looked to the windows. "No, outside," the person clarified. "If you walk down a block you can see the smoke." Some people went outside to look. I didn't.
Finally my boss came around telling us that everyone but "essential personnel" could go home. Never had I been happier to be nonessential. I shot off a few emails to people telling them I was okay, I was going home, I would try to contact them when I got there. The Federal Government had also just been shut down for the day. "Everyone," I thought, "is going to be on the Metro."
As I walked down and out, the rumors were flying. There was a fire at the Gannett Building, only blocks away. It was a car bomb. There was a car parked outside the State Department. It was probably a car bomb. There were people milling on every corner, trying to see the smoke. I kept my head down. Everyone crowded down the escalators. No car bombs down here. No Metro rumors yet. Would they start? Would they be true? Would there be gas? Would it be quiet or loud? I didn't take my book out. I didn't get a seat, it was already crowded and we weren't into D.C. yet.
It was the most crowded I'd ever seen the Metro. It was Japanese-subway, "they use sticks to push people into the cars" crowded. But it was quiet. And people were kind. That was the strangest part. People talked quietly with others near them, but no one panicked, no one hollered, people made room and dealt with the close quarters. I played a game. I looked at my fellow passengers and tried to pick out people who seemed interesting, or attractive, or different - someone with a good story, maybe. I was thinking of people I might never meet. I was thinking of who I'd go to in a crisis. Did someone look more trustworthy? More experienced? Was anyone here a doctor?
Mainly it was quiet. I had a long way to go, Greenbelt being the end of the Green line. As we spilled out into the sunshine at the end of the line, I felt such relief. It was still such a nice day. I was home, or close to home. I drove home without issue and called my Mom. This time, I got through - she was at home. Dad was coming home too, obviously since the government had shut down, but Mom had talked to him and he was fine. I asked Mom to have Dad call me when he got in. I watched the TV, not thinking a whole lot, but not turning it off. Dad called, he was fine. "Great," I said. "I'm going to take a nap." And I did. I slept from maybe 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. It was mainly a ploy to avoid the television. There was just too much, too much to see and process, not to mention think about. I couldn't think about thinking about it.
When I got up, I felt more normalized. I turned the TV on, but could think about it now. I made contact with a few friends and some of us went to Jenna and Shawn's that night to watch the President's speech and drink wine and just be with each other. The next day I went back to work like always. Except nothing like always.
That night I worked my second job, at the box office at the Old Greenbelt theater. People were gathered in Roosevelt Square kind of like always. But then a plane flew overhead, and everyone ducked, or flinched. It wasn't like always.