talk about it

I wondered how somebody on all other sides of the world could feel what I was feeling that day. I was thirteen, and my father commuted each day to downtown Manhattan New York.

We lived in Wilton Connecticut and it was a safe place, filled with trees and rock walls and arrowheads and ponds that people swam in. I caught frogs and fireflies in the summer and stayed out in the white icy branches of winter bundled up so tightly that I never thought I would be cold.

All of my friend's parents worked in the city, the two hour travel every morning and afternoon was a small price to pay when you lived in a place like wilton. There was a small town center with a white gazebo, an ice cream shop, and two markets and a lumber shop. I'm sure there was more there, but that's all I remember.

And after that day, I remember how everything changed. I remember the little flags stuck in the grass, everywhere I looked I could see the big broad stripes and the tiny stars waving. They grew up out of the ground, the buildings fell, but the feelings that replaced those lives- grew and grew. we lit candles and cried. the lights were too harsh to turn on, the phones didn't work.

at lunch my friend came in crying.

I asked her what was wrong and she started cursing and talking animatedly about terrorists. I didn't even know what that was. I closed my ears, and walked to my math class. I sat behind mike grippi. the blinds were open for the first time all year. walking down the hallway I could hear everyone whispering, the teachers had the tv's on.
Even though everyone was talking, I felt like I was in a seashell.

new york, the towers, the people.
my dad.
your dad.

why?

nobody explained anything.
a lady came over the speaker and told us we were needed at home.
we were allowed to use the phones if our parents were in the city to call but the lines were too crowded.

herded onto the bus, I can remember clutching my backpack to me, holding it tight like a friend.
and crying for my friends.


weeping for myself, I didn't know where my dad worked or where he would be when this all happened.

it was a terrible, terrible day.

I'm going to echo my friend liz's thoughts when she said the thing that scared her the most was the tears of her step mom.

when I got home I ran all through the house and I couldn't find my mother.
she was in the basement with the tv on
kneeling and soaking her shirt with tears.

that scared me the most.
I knew then, that it was real. that all the people leaping from the buildings to save themselves, the flames and the smoke, were all confirmed in my mothers eyes.

I'm not trying to be dramatic, I just want to write what happened.
so that I don't forget.

because it's important, someday we'll all be gone and the people who weren't there or here yet, need to remember.

the lives that we lost that day and the lives that we've lost since
fighting
so that you and me can write and read and think and pray to whatever we believe in.

so that we can all be on the same team.
I never felt more sorrow, or joy and pride in my country
and I've felt it every single year since.

9-11-2001