Archive for September, 2011

Literary Mileage
Pretending to be Normal at Barnes and Noble – A September 11 Remembrance

Sunday, September 11th, 2011

September 11, 2011
I live 12 blocks from the U.S. Capitol, and was at home on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. What follows are snippets from the journal I kept on that day and in the ones following the attacks.
Tuesday, September 11
I listen to sirens all day; from my living room window seeing countless vehicles with flashing lights zip west toward the Capitol. My hands are clammy, I repeatedly break out in chills, my stomach churns as helicopters hum ominously overhead. I know the FAA has grounded all planes and I can still hear them overhead. Are they going to hit the Capitol? Now I realize I’m hearing the drone of military fighters. I don’t know whether I am relieved or horrified.
Hundreds of people are streaming silently home, walking through Lincoln Park in the middle of the day. They remind me of the media scenes of refugees leaving Kosovo and other unstable parts of the world.
I become hypnotized by the TV and that ghastly repetitive image of the smoke billowing out of the tower, the crash of the second plane, then the towers falling. Late in the afternoon I hear from my sister that my nephews in NYC are safe. I rouse myself enough to take a bike ride down to the Capitol. An incredible police presence is protecting a perimeter out to 3rd St. A deathly quiet has descended over my neighborhood. That night I find myself at church with several hundred other dazed and frightened people. It is an enormous comfort not to be alone.
Wednesday, September 12
Today the drone overhead continues. A parade of camouflage humvees has come to town. I break out of my personally imposed house arrest and head for Georgetown, thinking to drink some coffee at Barnes and Noble and record my impressions. The sign on the locked door says “Closed due to danger.” I am anxious and distracted so I relocate to Washington Harbour on the Potomac…finally there’s no longer a huge plume of smoke boiling out of the Pentagon. The river is deceptively calm and green. Traces of white jet stream crisscross a sapphire sky.
Thursday, September 13
6:30 a.m. I wake up scared and angry after a terrible dream about the gaping hole in the Pentagon. Helicopters drone overhead. My cats, Ben and Jerry, relocate from the bottom of the bed to my pillow. Their warm purrs soothe me. Petting their velvety little heads and scratching their chins is comforting. I can distract myself briefly with their priorities—food, water, clean litter.
I go to a job interview, which seems surreal. We’re all trying so hard to do business as usual. I stop at the new Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism in World War II–a serene and contemplative plaza amid the bustle of Washington traffic near Union Station. An engraved quote by Daniel Inouye: “The lessons learned must remain as a grave reminder of what we must not allow to happen again to any group.”
Friday, September 14, A National Day of Prayer and Remembrance
5:56 a.m. I’m lying here in the semi darkness with dread enveloping me. I’m putting off turning the radio on-not sure I can endure hearing more about the now disappeared World Trade Center, the wounded Pentagon, the desperate New Yorkers holding up photos of their incinerated loved ones. My stomach hurts. I haven’t heard a helicopter or military plane yet. Could that be a good sign?
A heavy malaise of sorrow blankets me like that dust in NYC. I sigh deep, sad sighs.
Sometime in the night a chill rain crept in—a guerrilla attack of the meteorological kind. Depressing rain ushers in a cool front requiring fall jackets and long pants.
How arrogant to have taken our now-departed peace of mind for granted. I know there are lessons to be learned. It’s too soon to know what they are.
Please, please, let us not miss the point.

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