Last year at this time, the world had not yet changed. I sat in the same place I sit now, drinking tea, checking the sff.net newsgroups, and waiting for Vicki to get to work so we could begin our daily email blitz.
At the same second that Vicki emailed me to tell me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I saw it on sff.net. I thought, at first, that it was an accident, just like everyone else. I tried to check CNN, but the page wouldn't load. None of the news pages would load. My only access to information was the sff.net newsgroups.
Someone from another department came in and said they had CNN on TV in another room. The picture was snowy, but everyone could see clearly enough. I watched the guy fall from the building on live TV. I felt like I was in some sort of nightmare. No one seemed to know what to do. We stared at the TV screen in silence--and in horror.
I walked back to the office after the first tower collapsed. About an hour later, the governor told all non-essential employees to go home. So I drove home, in a daze, and watched the empty skies. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue.
As soon as I got home, I turned on the TV. Spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between the phone, chat, and the TV. Couldn't write. Couldn't think. Felt sick in my heart, mind, and soul for the people who were in the towers, in the planes... The world skewed sideways. It still feels that way.
I had ebay stuff to take to the post office, but I couldn't bring myself to venture near the PO for an entire week. Some of the stuff I mailed on the 7th finally made it to California three weeks later, wet, bedraggled, and almost flat. But it made it, and we rejoiced. And life went on. Life went on.
I started to think about things. About where I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do. And I made a couple of preliminary decisions; decisions I have both forgotten and remembered since then.
Has it really been a year? It feels like only yesterday.
At the same second that Vicki emailed me to tell me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I saw it on sff.net. I thought, at first, that it was an accident, just like everyone else. I tried to check CNN, but the page wouldn't load. None of the news pages would load. My only access to information was the sff.net newsgroups.
Someone from another department came in and said they had CNN on TV in another room. The picture was snowy, but everyone could see clearly enough. I watched the guy fall from the building on live TV. I felt like I was in some sort of nightmare. No one seemed to know what to do. We stared at the TV screen in silence--and in horror.
I walked back to the office after the first tower collapsed. About an hour later, the governor told all non-essential employees to go home. So I drove home, in a daze, and watched the empty skies. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue.
As soon as I got home, I turned on the TV. Spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between the phone, chat, and the TV. Couldn't write. Couldn't think. Felt sick in my heart, mind, and soul for the people who were in the towers, in the planes... The world skewed sideways. It still feels that way.
I had ebay stuff to take to the post office, but I couldn't bring myself to venture near the PO for an entire week. Some of the stuff I mailed on the 7th finally made it to California three weeks later, wet, bedraggled, and almost flat. But it made it, and we rejoiced. And life went on. Life went on.
I started to think about things. About where I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do. And I made a couple of preliminary decisions; decisions I have both forgotten and remembered since then.
Has it really been a year? It feels like only yesterday.
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