Second Thoughts

I thought I was done with the 9/11 posting. That's what we're supposed to do, right, spend the day thinking about it, perhaps after some lead up malaise and then move along as the clock hits midnight. I am, shockingly, not good with following directions.

I shared Lillybaine's thoughts with you. I also indulged in perusing the comments of a popular blog written in the proverbial heartland. There were plenty of prayers and pleasantries and where-we-weres. Some of them struck me sort of dully in the side. People, I think people not in cities and not in major military centers had been immediately struck with the need to stock pile water and to fill their SUV's with gas. The irony of the latter seems to have escaped them.

Sunday morning in the shower I put two and two together. It's where I often do that sort of math. No wonder my checkbook is never balanced. Here we were in New York City in September of 2001 trying to get home. All of the 9/11 stories I've heard from people here are about getting home. Walking, running, waiting for the subway to resume, showering at a friend's house but continuing on to the ultimate goal of HOME. I'm sure I've written before about how awkward I felt responding to offers from friends and family to come and join them away from New York to "wait it out." That couldn't have been farther from what I needed to do. I needed to be here, be home, to keep my claim staked because heaven knew anything could fucking happen.

This year, reading those comments was the first time I had came across stories about people wanting to flee. So they're in places where the bad has not happened, and presumably not in target rich environments, and their reaction is a desire to flee. 

How incongruous are those two responses? Humans are truly odd.