EVEN AFTER TEN YEARS, THE memories and pain are still fresh when I think of them. I don’t think of them often.
My habit in those days was to check the Ha’aretz news ticker with my morning coffee. “Hmm… soccer teams doing well, banks not so much, road accidents, airplane flies into World Trade Center. Wait. What?”
I turned on the TV and called to Ann in the other room that something terrible had happened. While I was waiting for her, the second plane hit.
Later, the towers fell while we watched. The TV showed a split-screen of smoke rising from New York and Washington. “What the hell is going on?” we wondered.
We still wonder that, wondering more now somewhat that It’s Been Ten Years. We certainly didn’t expect to be where we are now. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this, and I have no concrete suggestions, but I certainly think we need to change. I recently wrote a haiku and pre-blog-dated it to That Day — it seemed to belong, somehow:
It’s all different.
But as the smoke palls the sky
The flowers still bloom
Two weeks after That Day I also published a newspaper column to that effect, and in 2002 delivered a speech. By these little acts we move forward.
By little acts let us all move forward.