Remembering

I was in DC five years ago, working for a publishing company. I remember my then-boyfriend dropping me off at work, where I noted some people watching the television on my way to my office, where I got my usual first-thing-in-the-morning tasks out of the way.

I didn't even realize that this was an event that would define America and begin a new era until 10:30 or so. And then it sank in. I called my brother in California, who hadn't heard yet because he was just getting ready to go to work. I called my aunt and uncle in Seattle, who were up and watching the buildings burn on their television. I tried calling my boyfriend, who was in the army, but couldn't get hold of him. It would be hours before he called me, with the frightening message that he couldn't tell me what he would be doing, or whether it was dangerous. I think he said he loved me and I said it back -- we can't NOT have said that to each other on that day -- but I don't remember. I just remember my heart skipping a beat when he said he couldn't say what he'd be doing.

Later, it turned out he hadn't been assigned to do anything particularly dangerous (at least, that's what he told me). But he knew guys who had been killed at the Pentagon. He knew guys who had been assigned to look for bodies at the Pentagon.

I remember walking home and a complete stranger asking me if I'd heard about bombs in front of the Capitol. The eerie quiet. And the next day, the incongruous tanks in the streets of downtown DC.

Day to day, there isn't that much of a difference in my own life now as compared to before 9/11/01. But I can't watch the new movies out about 9/11, no matter how tasteful or how much they are meant to honor the dead and the heroes that day. I still can't see the video of the towers coming down without the sensation of something clenching in my chest. What's that Emily Dickinson poem? The one about the snake in the grass? It ends: "But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone."