9 Years Ago Today....

...I was sitting on my stoop, relaxing and drinking coffee as Houdini played in the yard. It was peaceful--the neighborhood was in weekday-quiet mode and rush hour on route 1 was beginning to slow. I lingered under that perfect blue sky, not yet knowing that September 11, 2001 had irrevocably become "9/11."

Much has and will continue to be written about that day. I won't pretend to have any particularly profound observations to make. But today, nine years later, these are my thoughts:


It's another clear blue day--pleasant but no match for that cerulean blue I can still see in my mind's eye. (I'm sure that the character of that sky--it's shade and brilliance--has been embellished in my mind by time, but that's how I remember it.) I am again on the stoop, drinking coffee. But where is the peace? All is noise. Yard tools are wielded. Traffic whizzes by, drivers on their way to...?

This is 40: Or How I Spent My (Incredibly Long) Summer Vacation

On July 31, 2009—29 days before my 40th birthday—I walked away from my job. Period. No new job lined up, no clear idea of what to do next and only the flimsiest of plans for supporting myself. Just a need to step off the ledge—not to go “splat,” but as a leap of faith. I could see it in my mind's eye—the wind in my hair, arms wide open. Freedom.

I had been depressed for 5 years. 5.

And I had had it.