Aftermath

It's a gorgeous day in Baltimore. Really the finest type of late summer weather. Not too hot, clear blue sky. The birds are singing the flowers are blooming. It makes me realize that people are both the most significant lifeforms on the planet, and the least significant.

I was just starting the morning "surf" when one of the techs said "come see this the world trade center is burning". We always have tvs playing in the office - it's part of the bosses weird vision of how "high tech" should be. So I went and I watched it all unfold. I called DH to give him the news as they aren't connected. After the Pentagon was hit, he bailed his place. I only left off watching to switch to my own office (we have tv on the pcs) and listen to a local radio for school closings. DH and I are munchkin's school backup plan during closures.

When the plane went down in PA the other lady in the office said "Something seems to be happening every 15 minutes or so, I'm getting the hell out of here". And we did. I arrived home uneventfully and just in time to see DH heading out to pickup the munchkin based on a bad news bulletin.

So we mistakenly thought the schools had been closed yesterday, and we arrived just in time to see the munchkin dancing into the cafeteria for lunch. They said we could sign him out, but how can you disrupt the day of a munchkin so happy for a piece of cafeteria pizza that he's dancing? We opted to leave him there. School closed only a half hour early. His only concerns were 1) why did both mommy and daddy come to pick him up? and 2) that there were only 4 children in his class that day (out of 23). I guess very few people shared our point of view. I replay that dance in my mind. It is so different from what I did and do feel. It is a good thing to be oblivious at the age of 4.

I don't know of any friends or acquaintences lost. I am hearing terrible stories from others. The big boss at work tells of a good friend whose daughter was on the PA plane. She called from the flight to say goodbye. The lady downstairs whose brother worked in the World Trade Center. He called after the plane hit to say he was ok - unfortunately that was right before the building collapsed. I don't think he made it out. I've been wracking my brain for folks that I know at the Pentagon, but strangely most have changed jobs or transfered. I have a sad feeling, though, that I will know someone.

I'm not a very religious person. Frankly I've pretty much abandoned organized religion because there is too much politics involved in it. I do believe in a force in the universe far greater than my power to understand. Perhaps it is God, perhaps just life. I've had this little prayer since college, I keep it to help me make sense of the incomprehensible.

The Weavers Prayer

Not 'till the loom is silent

and the shuttles cease to fly

will God unroll the canvas

and explain the reason why

the dark threads are as needful

in the weavers skillful hand

as the threads of gold and silver

in the pattern he has planned.