...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...?
Yet on this morning, this 9/11, it somehow fits. I am reminded that despite all those we have lost--and continue to lose--time moves on. We move on.
Because I can see something else from my perch. Neighbors returning from the farmers' market. Dogs walking their people (don't kid yourself, it's true). Bicycles passing.
And me? I skip down the steps to talk to a friend from two doors down as she passes by with her daughter, on the way to the park.
Because although clear blue Tuesdays in September still give me pause--the Apocalypse has not come.
Yes, Bin Laden is still in his cave. The "War on Terror" still rages. Al Qaeda cells continue to pop up everywhere, like mushrooms in shit. But we're still here .
Can there be any better memorial than that?
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