Looking back

Wow. Eight years. A lot has happened in eight years.

A Facebook friend just posited the following question: "Where were you eight years ago today?"

I responded. I also had thought about this this morning when I woke up and the current NPR story began to make sense and no longer played the part of narrator in the limbo between sleep and waking.

Right now it's 11:24 am. At that time I was either walking back to my room in Dorman Hall from Honors Religion in America (REL 2121) in Dodd Hall or had just gotten back from class. Lauren was still in her pajamas, sitting under the covers of her bad with her knees drawn up to her chest, the television remote clutched in her right hand, and chewing on her right thumbnail. The lights hadn't been turned on. She hadn't been able to do anything but watch as the events unfolded. Lauren had watched as the towers had begun to fall.

I told her how my teacher held class as normal, only slightly touching on the subject of what had happened by saying, "We have to go about our lives as we normally would. If we don't, they've won. That's what people like that always want. They want to create disaster and terror and disruption. We can resist by going on like we normally would." This was before we knew about all four planes. This was before we knew about the plot. This was before the towers fell.

---

That Tuesday morning the phone rang before my alarm went off. I jumped out of bed to retrieve the handset from the cradle.

"Hello?"

"Danielle. This is Miss Sharon."

"Oh, hi."

"Were you and Lauren awake?"

"No. I have class in...30 minutes."

"Turn on the television to a news channel."

"What? Why?"

"Just turn it on. Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center towers and another one has crashed into the Pentagon."

I woke Lauren and did as I was told. Footage of the second plane was being aired, smoke rising up from the first tower.

Miss Sharon was concerned about a plane coming for the capitol building here in Tallahassee. I assured her that we were far enough away from the capitol and the governor's house.

---

We kept CNN on all day. I cried watching all the people fleeing. I talked with friends from high school about the surrealness of it all. We all agreed that it was like watching Black Rain come to life, except that that was about the atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and this was people fleeing from the world's tallest towers which had fallen.

---

I remember the numbness that fell over me. The numbness that seemed to have fallen over the university. The numbness that seemed to have fallen over the rest of the country. We were separated from the events, but inexplicably linked by our humanity. I didn't know how to react. Sometimes I still don't know how to react.