Today

We have had a quiet weekend here; the kind we've been craving for a while. With time enough for playing at the park, dusting the shelves, trying out a recipe, and celebrating a birthday. The kind with time to relax, and rest, and realize that this is why we do all the rest. Time to recharge, to replenish, and to reflect.

Ten years ago, of course, was 9/11. The moment everyone seems to know exactly what they were doing, kind of like Kennedy's assassination before that. And in 10 years, the country has become more patriotic, if not more desperate. The real estate bubble popped, orphaned (or at least helf-orphaned) children have grown, the first graders who left one by one that morning are now only a year or so from high school graduation.

Their parents came to get them, you see, one by one. As each one was called to the office over the PA, they would come and give me a hug. Knowing, somehow, with their childlike intuition, that all was not okay. Something was off-kilter, the air holding its breath somehow. And I hugged them back, before they got their backpacks and walked down the hall. None of us secure, all of us teetering from moment to moment that day, and then the next.

Reading facebook this morning, it turns out several of my facebook friends (girls from elementary, middle, or high school) were pregnant that day, and in big cities. One in the Sears tower in Chicago, one running through the streets in Boston. I can't imagine how they felt during those hours and weeks, as they were about to become mothers for the first time, when their country was reeling, sending them into orbit. Having a baby RIGHT THEN, I can't imagine. Ten years later, I now have two babies of my own.

The country is different. The people are changed. And we remember all; the ones who perished, the ones who went to help, the ones who remained.

God Bless Us Every One.