I woke up about 7 am, and did my usual routine, breakfast, exercises, morning prayers and candle burning. But I felt depressed. I started to feel hopeless about my relationships (which are actually going well but I have experienced separation anxiety and attributed it to one of my relationships before when in actuality a relative had died). I felt grimmer and grimmer. And there was no reason that I could see for it and so felt that it was related to my life in some way. As I did my exercises I was surprised that I was still doing them with the level of emotion that I was feeling. Finally I went online and there Tracey, my son's lady, told me that there had been an attack in NY and I turned on the television to see the tower burning. I was in shock as all of us were. I called Tom and we watched what was happening.
My phone rang and I went to answer it. F. had called because he knew that I would be deeply affected by it and I would need him (I was very grateful and touched by his thoughtfulness). His call steadied me for a time. Afterwards I went back to the news and to the email filled with discussion, shock, anger, fear, and requests for others in NY to check in and let us know they were all right. I am not sure how well I would have handled it all without his call.
Tom and I had an appointment for a run through of the shelter we have reserved for Pagan Pride Day on Sunday, September 16th. We drove into Madison with the radio on until we realized that they had no new information. Then we shut it off, overloaded with the horror. I found it almost surrealistic to do the walk through, talk about keys and bathrooms, water access, moving tables, etc. while people were suffering the aftermath of the attacks in NYC. Then we picked up our son to take him to check out apartments for his move. We also bought some finger food and snacks for our anniversary. We are planning on spending the day tomorrow in bed for our anniversary. We will shut out the world for a little while and forget the tragedy to the best of our ability for a few hours. The normality of the afternoon seemed to help me at least til we got home and turned on the news again.
Copyright © 2001 Kyril Oakwind