Where Were You?
Walking out of the bathroom, that’s what I was doing when
I heard.
I was walking out of the bathroom, shaking the droplets of water
off my hands,
when I saw the TV on in the conference room, when someone told me
about the planes.
My sister-in-law was in a class at Bible College. They stopped
and prayed.
Someone I work with was about to go in for a job interview. She
sat watching TV with the secretary.
My husband was also trying to watch the TV on the
secretary’s desk, though the screen was only an inch wide.
It was difficult to see what was happening.
My friend was working at a nursery school. Parents started
arriving, crying, whisking their children home.
My mom was in the church office. All she heard was "they
bombed the Pentagon." A woman came in off the street,
hysterical.
My dad was in the car listening to the radio. He was tuned
into this jazz station that had a morning talk show.
They were looking for callers.
The last normal thing he heard them say was, "Now how many
of you have a relative that dresses like a pimp?"
Call in and tell us.
But they didn’t, because then there was this rustling of
papers, and he said there was something happening in New York.
My dad changed the channel.
Like Wildfire
I think of the ripple, or the tidal wave.
From East to West – office workers to carpoolers to kitchen
dwellers to those under the covers.
Someone tells someone who tells someone who tells someone.
A thousand simultaneous gasps, followed by a thousand others.
Hands go to mouths and to remote controls.
The whispers: "Did you hear?" "What
happened?" and varying versions of the same story echo, and
overlap.
Never before: so many fingers dialing, or dancing across the
keys, trying to make the connection.
A nation full of eyes entranced by the screen – and uneaten
dinners, and tears in pillows.
3/7/02
At the Command Center
Even -- or maybe especially -- at times like these, we look for
the familiar.
So when I walked into the hospital's "Disaster Command
Center," into this dimly lit room that smelled faintly of
lunch leftovers,
I found myself sitting near the only person I knew: Cindy Murphy.
"Are you keeping the list of volunteers?" I asked.
She faintly waved a paper with pencil scratches.
I sat in front of the red telephone, tryng to think like my boss.
But like a giggler at a funeral, I was teetering on hysteria.
The red "disaster" phones were like something out of
Batman. Yes, we were in the Bat Cave, getting ready to save the
city.
And the phone calls to my boss, these screaming conversations:
she had two people over either shoulder, helping her compose
e-mail.
I had three televisions overhead, all saying different things.
After awhile, they gave us chocolate chip cookies. From
somewhere I mustered indignation that they were burnt.
Soda fizzed in styrofoam cups.
We chewed and swallowed, watching the people run away from the
dust.
The phones stopped ringing.
6/12/02
Behind the Picture (taken September 11)
The television blared to no one.
People had vanished into their cubicled worlds.
The afternoon held a lull that eclipsed all others: the silence
of shock.
But we had to take a picture for a poster. We needed to
photograph hands.
So Jodi and Elz sat before the camera, and Elz held Jodi's hand,
taking her pulse.
They are just hands, anyone who sees this now thinks. Or they
think nothing at all.
Only I still hear the handswhisper reassuring words.
Only I still see someone that day taking my hand and finding the
beat --
finding it pounding, but then slowing, because there were two of
us there, and our hearts were still going.
5/6/02
Turn Off the Lights
The next morning in the car, driving to work just like the day
before, I was fine until this song I'd never heard came on the
radio.
And even then I could have come through unscathed or still numbed
but there was something about the chorus.
...They say that girl you know she act so tough, tough,
tough but it's til I turn off the lights, turn off the lights --
I said follow me, follow me, follow me, down, down, down until
you see all my dreams,
Not everything in this magical world is what it seems...
Then I was sobbing and choking and couldn't see the road in
front of me, because this was all real.
In the parking lot I took a shuddering breath and compressed into
the corporate version of myself.
In the bathroom I held wet paper towels to my face, waiting for
the red to disappear, waiting for my eyes to clear.
6/17/02
The Day After (September 12)
At work the TV kept playing outside of my cubicle and inside my head.
I fought fear with the mundane.
I clicked on the keys and stared ahead at the haze of white
screen.
If I dared close my eyes, I saw buildings falling, fire, and
airplanes – in slow-motion; instant replay.
That day there were no planes in the blue skies; no everyday
worries about traffic or bills – just my heartbeat and cold
hands.
Around noon Jenn gave me pink roses.
At first they took me by surprise.
They left me almost breathless.
I got lost in the folds of intricately carved petals, blinded by
the beauty and sweetness.
In that delicious drowning time I prayed for time before life
opened my eyes, and jolted me awake.
9/21/01
First Laugh
We stood in the hospital lobby with lights and cords and
microphones.
Mark Tolosky, the CEO, stared right into the camera.
An American flag pin was fastened to his suit.
I can do this, I thought, breathing deeply.
Glancing out the window, I could see the flag, at half-mast,
shifting in the breeze.
The camera rolled and soon my forehead grew sticky from the
lights.
Someone passing by said, "They just found firefighters alive
in the rubble!"
Please God, I choked, then swallowed it. We had to
finish.
Tolosky hadn’t heard. Instead, he cracked a joke.
I don’t remember it anymore. I just remember laughing.
These unused muscles squeaked into a smile.
My stomach tickled and eyes watered.
The laughter shook my insides and spread this warmth within me
that lingered with the afternoon shadows.
11/20/01
Saturday (September 15)
It was time to mobilize.
On 96.5 TIC-FM, in-between "God Bless America" and
the "Star Spangled Banner," people were calling in and
urging us to stop at Big Y or the parking lot of Kay’s
Beauty Salon.
Drop off your bottled water and your blankets, your flashlights
and your food. We’ll do everything we can to get it there.
I donned my yellow gloves and began scrubbing mildew from the
bathroom walls, furiously scraping in tune to the music,
making the faucets gleam back my red face.
Later, on my way to Wal-Mart, I saw firefighters collecting dollars in their boots.
There was nothing we could do.
So we followed a slapped together script patched with bits of
World War II films and recollections from our grandparents.
I could almost hear the narrator.
At a red light this melancholy song from the summer came on
the radio.
The song spilled out from my open windows and through other open
windows.
This, I calculated, would be the emotional scene.
Drifting outside myself, gazing down at the tableau, I wondered how long this would go on – this detachment, this thin line of separation, like an egg shell.
Lunchtime
A week later we were sitting outside, the sun beating on our
backs, eating tuna fish and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Above us the sky was a brilliant blue; one of those almost autumn
skies free of summer haze. There were no clouds.
In an instant the roar of a plane interrupted our sentences.
Every one of us looked up –
our mouths slightly opened, squinting, expecting something none
of us would ever put into words.
We’d learned so quickly, this new reflex.
The thought drained me and the flavor out of the moment.
I crumpled my brown bag, definitely finished.
1/27/02