Remembering

Today is a day of remembering. It is easier when the sky isn't the same as that bright blue sky that it was in 2001. I remember that it was History Girl's third day of Kindergarten. I remember dropping her off she loved going to school. I remember it recycling day so the bins were out front and I went out to get them after the truck came by picking up the recycling. Horse Girl who was 18 months old at the time had fallen asleep on the living room floor, so I log on the the computer and talk to a friend who at the time lived outside of NYC. She told me to turn on the TV. I am grateful that Horse Girl took a long nap that morning so I could follow the news. I started watching right after the first plane hit, and Horse Girl napped long enough that I got to see and hear about all the other planes. I remember the first tower collapsing and thinking about all the people still in the building...then thinking about how NYC skyline that I always knew has changed permanently....I didn't realize then how true that was. I remember wanting to go get History Girl from school, but didn't because that was irrational desire. I knew we were in Maine and more or less safe, so I left her in school....that was before I found out two of the terrorists stayed the night on the other side of town and they flew out of the airport that I use when fly in and out of Portland. I also remember how quiet the everything was. We live under a flight path to the Portland airport so I normally hear a plane or two every hour, but the next few days there was just disturbing quiet. I remember my father coming to visit the next couple evenings. Since he works at a newspaper those days were very stressful for him and he needed to relax.

This was the first 9-11 that I didn't have flashbacks of the events of that day. I think it is because school started early this year. For the past 7 years I have tied the start of school with the events of 9-11-2001. The year Horse Girl started Kindergarten was really bad because there was a lot of thing that were just like when History Girl started Kindergarten that brought back memories.

This evening I read "The Man Who Walked Between The Towers" to Horse Girl. I like the book because it is a nice tribute to the twin towers that is overwhelmingly sad. Horse Girl asked me why the towers weren't there any more and I told her and we talked for quite awhile. She really has an amazing amount of empathy for people and she really showed it when we talked.

Tales from the Testosterone Zone, asks "Where were you on September 11, 2001? How has it affected your life?" Well I answered where was I. How it has affected me....well I am not sure. It has affected how I view back to school. It has made air travel much more of a pain then it ever was before. It helped me discover how much I like train travel....so much more civilized. I used to watch the news, now I read about it because it is easier to walk away if it gets too overwhelming, though it is a lot harder to read the news for me because of my LDs, but it is just better for me now....so I feel like I am not as well informed about things as I once was, but now with RSS feeds I feel like that is changing quickly.

So that is my where and how.