One year ago
Thursday, September 12th, 2002 08:34 amFrom a mailing list I'm on:
Hummingwolf
Wed, 12 Sep 2001 07:20:13 -0700 (PDT)
It's hard to say which is worse. Hearing no planes overhead, or hearing planes all night long and knowing what they are. Hearing the normal daily sounds here, now--traffic on the highways in spite of all the closings, bus going by one block over, freight trains a bit over a mile away, someone in their garage with power tools building something, and the planes flying overhead. If you can forget what those planes must be, the only thing missing, the only thing making it clear that this is not an ordinary September morning, is the absence of children in the school field. No sounds of playing at all on such a beautiful, sunny day.
I did manage to get some sleep last night, though my dreams were filled with fire. I woke up at about 6:20 this morning, hearing something... I still don't know what it was, but there was something loud, resembling car horns or perhaps alarms, with a definite, seemingly deliberate rhythm to it. A few seconds later, I heard sirens, what sounded like the entire firehouse gearing up to go somewhere, deal with something. The sirens went on for ten minutes. I turned on the news radio station, wondering if there was something new that I should know about.
As I lay there, hearing over the sirens the sound of more military planes flying high overhead, listening to the news of the morning which sounded exactly like the news of last evening--fire still burning, we know people are dead, but we don't know how many, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know--the shock of yesterday finally dissolved; and for the first time since yesterday morning, I cried. I'm crying now.
( Read more... )
Hummingwolf
Wed, 12 Sep 2001 07:20:13 -0700 (PDT)
It's hard to say which is worse. Hearing no planes overhead, or hearing planes all night long and knowing what they are. Hearing the normal daily sounds here, now--traffic on the highways in spite of all the closings, bus going by one block over, freight trains a bit over a mile away, someone in their garage with power tools building something, and the planes flying overhead. If you can forget what those planes must be, the only thing missing, the only thing making it clear that this is not an ordinary September morning, is the absence of children in the school field. No sounds of playing at all on such a beautiful, sunny day.
I did manage to get some sleep last night, though my dreams were filled with fire. I woke up at about 6:20 this morning, hearing something... I still don't know what it was, but there was something loud, resembling car horns or perhaps alarms, with a definite, seemingly deliberate rhythm to it. A few seconds later, I heard sirens, what sounded like the entire firehouse gearing up to go somewhere, deal with something. The sirens went on for ten minutes. I turned on the news radio station, wondering if there was something new that I should know about.
As I lay there, hearing over the sirens the sound of more military planes flying high overhead, listening to the news of the morning which sounded exactly like the news of last evening--fire still burning, we know people are dead, but we don't know how many, we don't know, we don't know, we don't know--the shock of yesterday finally dissolved; and for the first time since yesterday morning, I cried. I'm crying now.
( Read more... )
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