On the night of September 10, 2001, I went to bed early. Feeling especially stressed, I wanted to get extra sleep, so I turned off both the television and the bedside radio. I had it in my mind that I didn't want any bad news to interrupt my sleep or give me bad dreams. I needed rest, and I needed quiet. And I planned to sleep in the next morning, staying in bed as late as I wanted. But I forgot to unplug the ringer on my bedside telephone.
So for the first time in two years, I went to sleep with no television or radio to keep me company. An eerie darkness enveloped the living room, and the house fell silent. I could hear an occasional raccoon skittering about in my yard, and an owl perched high in a cedar tree gave out an occasional hoot. Otherwise, my little mountain cabin was quiet and peaceful.
The telephone rang shortly before 9 a.m. west coast time, and I considered letting it ring. I really didn't want to answer it, but the answering machine no longer worked and caller I.D. was still a dream of the future, so curiosity overcame me. Only bill collectors called me in the morning, but still, maybe it was somebody that I wanted or needed to talk to. I rolled over and picked it up.
My son's voice asked me if I had heard the news. No. An airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. Are you sure? You must be watching a movie. The fuzzy memory of an episode of "Men in Black" flaoted into my morning mind. No, it's real.
So I turned on the television. Oh, my God, it's real! Two airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers. One could have been an accident, but not two.
Then I heard my son telling me that another plane crashed into the Pentagon.
I wonder, did my actions of the night before mean that some part of me had known ahead of time that this was going to happen? The vague notion of "bad news" could have popped into my head on any day at any time, and it often did. But turning off the television and radio was something that I never had done in two years. I always had something to lull me to sleep, either a cable news channel or talk radio, but not on that night.
In any case, that day changed our lives. Here in California, thousands of miles away from the Twin Towers, we walked around in a daze. We went through the motions of daily life, but the joy was gone. American flags appeared on houses and cars that never had displayed them before. The police and fire stations put their flags down to half mast. Our newly found patriotism had a quiet dignity, in contrast to the noisy political rallies that came later.
We had been stunned. We were in shock.
Whoever had done this, whatever their motives, we had no idea what to do about it or how to prevent future tragedies. We are still arguing about the details, about who did it and how we can prevent another attack, but the fact remains that civilians were attacked on our soil in a big, big way. America will never be the same.
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