(I feel like I have so much to say. There have been moments yesterday and today where I've felt like I could never stop writing, like I should never stop. I don't know if it's the journalism student in me, or what it is, but the past two days my appetite for information has been voracious. There will always be words. There will always be stories to tell. The national news has been heroic putting faces to names to numbers; giving exposure for the missing in New York. It doesn't feel sensational. It feels necessary and right. And very real. Always very real. There will always be words.)
This morning, as I clicked her leash on, Montego looked at me with expectant eyes, as if to say: The light's up, time to go outside? Another day begins?
And so it did, and so it does, but not the same. It will never be the same - we've heard it a lot. It just takes a moment, an instant, to be able to say that.
Finally around 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday I had to go to bed. I had to shut it all off - the television, the computer. Still, I was scared to sleep for fear of what I'd wake up to find.
Luckily the first stories I took in were those of miracles. Firefighters and a police officer found in a pocket of rubble - alive. Survivors buried but able to place cell phone calls for help. The estimated Pentagon number of 800 too high.
I struggled to stay busy during the day, but I couldn't focus. I checked my mail, the forum, Threeway Action, almost obsessively. I wanted concrete answers, but there were none. There are none. Time has only marched by for 36 hours now and so much as happened, even though it seems nothing's happened. Not since Tuesday morning. Tuesday's mourning.
My mother had called around 9:15 a.m. EST and I was immediately alarmed when I saw her home number flash up in my caller ID. Normally she makes long distance calls from her cell, so as soon as I picked up the phone I asked her what had happened.
Initially I thought she said two planes had crashed into Grand Central Station. Then when she clarified that it was the World Trade Center, I thought she meant single engine planes, Cessnas or Pipers. No, no, airliners. Jets, she said.
Two? What a horrifying coincidental accident, I thought. I tried to get on CNN.com to find out more accurate details since my mom's not always on target in her reporting. When the Tejana singer Selena was murdered my mom erroneously told me it was Celine Dion, and that her "country" was in shock. I thought, Canada?
I sucked in my breath - Miranda's in New York. She's coming back this morning. As the words left my mouth, Miranda walked in our building, chattering quickly into her cell phone.
Just pray, my mother said. Just pray.
As soon as we had hung up, Mo called. She repeated what my mom had told me and that's when my coworkers and I scrambled to load CNN.com or MSNBC.com. Finally we heard the radio coming from someone's Mac speakers.
We stood around asking if anyone knew where the hijacked plane had come from. It must've been Laguardia I said. That's the closest airport, the only one from which a plane could've so quickly siezed and crashed without alert. I grabbed Miranda's arm - you were there. Jesus, you just left there. I had to walk away for fear I'd hit my knees in prayer that instant - thanking God for bringing my friend home to me, begging Him to make peace come fast.
When I got back to my desk, I called Mo again to see if she'd seen anything else on the TV and that's when she told me about the Pentagon. Are you sure?, I asked. Yes! she cried.
Shortly thereafter we headed toward the gym.
Time is hard; even for me, so removed and safe in the woods of Ohio, the morning is jumbled. I know I got into work at 9, as I'm habitually late, and I'm pretty sure we were in the gym by 10 as I saw both towers fall live on FOX News. But that hour, it's confusing. Who isn't still confused?
Mo and Miranda stayed at my place until the early evening. I rotated between the TV and the internet. I paced. I, of course, ate.
I talked to my mom, my father. He told me that G works in the Chicago World Trade Center. I couldn't, I can't, quite begin to process that.
Just before midnight, before my world clicked over from the infamous 11th to a 12th of rebirth, I forced myself to sign off, to turn off. Before I climbed into bed, hoping for my exhaustion to turn to sleep, I pushed play on Chantel Kreviazuk's colour moving and still.
In the darkness of my room, a quiet sky outside my window, she sang "They say we're in a state of emergency/So how come no one is panicking/Where were you when they broke the news."
The notify is still here.
Diarist dot Net has an amazing list of journallers' accounts and reactions.