In my lifetime, this is the day everything changed.
We are being attacked!
I heard my coworker yelling as she ran down the hall past my office. I worked in a hospital at the time and yelling in the halls was unusual. And disturbing. Planes are hitting buildings in New York City!
It has become one of those awful “where were you?” moments. The horrific alteration of reality that gets seared in memory.
Must call family. Must connect. My daughter – a college sophomore on the east coast. My son in the 8th grade. My husband at home. My parents called him. My siblings. My friend in DC. My friend in NYC. The need to wrap oneself around loved ones as we watched the horror, the fires, the smoke, the pain unfold on television – over and over and over and over. Hope draining away as the hours dragged on.
Emails flew through cyberspace. Are you okay? Are you okay? My good friend who lived close to NYC frantic to help in some way. A doctor, she made ready to go to Ground Zero. But there was nobody to save. Was on call for helping at hospitals but no living to care for…she wrote to me.
Such profound loss.
Since then life has been divided: Before 9/11 and After 9/11.
A whole generation of children are now growing up under the cloud of what happened that bright sunny day in 2001. Its aftermath. Its fallout.
My heart breaks, still, for those thousands of innocents who died that day. And for their families. And for the first responders. And their families.
Soon after that day in 2001, the nation was called upon to light candles together in remembrance and solidarity. It was a time of unspeakable tragedy and for a brief time…there was unity. We stood on our small deck with a candle. A moment of silence.
I drove to work a few days later and saw a big American flag newly attached to the top of a huge crane – at the construction site for the hospital’s addition project. Similar to the ones at the WTC.
~~~
As a child, I hid under my school desk. Practice drills. Crouched low with head down. In case we were attacked. Then we weren’t. And life went on much as before.
That won’t work anymore.
This morning, the news networks held a moment of silence at 8:46 am to mark when the first plane hit.
Flash Fiction Challenge: September 6, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write about an epic workplace. It can be real or imagined. Go where the prompt leads.
“I’m doing my works!”
The little girl demonstrates.
Carefully pouring water from cup to bowl.
The silent visitor watches in surprise.
She’s never seen such a grand school.
Small wooden tables and chairs. A low matching sink.
Sun pouring in on many bright, happy faces.
The little boy calls out “Me too. Look at my works!”
Red cubes stacked high.
A place for important work. For all.
Pouring. Sorting. Counting. Writing.
Girls and boys. Older helping younger.
Just like her.
The teacher, sitting on the big rug, smiles. Please join us for circle time. Welcome to Greenwood Montessori school.
Today I went to school. I brought my lunch. I wore my coolest dress because it was 90° Boy it was HOT. (grade 5)
Today I went to school. I brought my lunch. After school I did my homework…Then I played Army…We watched TV. (grade 5)
Today I went to school. It wasn’t my day. I brought my lunch… (grade 5)
~~~
When September rolls around, traditions click into place. Even irrelevant outdated ones – when entrenched in childhood, they still rise to the surface years later. Like the cream floating on milk in those half gallon bottles delivered by the milkman when I was 9.
But I digress.
More like whoops it’s past Labor Day, now I have to stop wearing white shoes. Which, again, is no longer relevant. I don’t even own white shoes.
Labor Day. My childhood diaries mark its significance. Labor Day meant getting ready for school, the beginning of school and the end of summer. And my white footwear was shoved to the back of the closet until the following Memorial Day. Which was fine with me, as I preferred my Keds.
~~~
I put dividers in my notebooks…Maddy came over and helped me organize my notebooks…(grade 6)
Today I went to school…I began to understand the Math…(grade 6)
Today I went to school. We had Math. Then Science…After lunch & Social Studies we had gym. We played keep-away football…(grade 6)
~~~
September = shopping trips for school clothes. Sensible dresses, skirts, shoes. One year: dresses with attached poor boy tops. And then just poor boy tops. A CPO jacket. Penny loafers. Or – after much begging and cajoling – a bra. My my. And finally, after more begging – stockings and a garter belt. This was years before girls could wear pants to school. A new pocketbook – at some point – with my own saved-up money. Bought at a discount store with a girlfriend. One year a madras style. One year with fringe. If possible, with zippers.
School…
I attended 5 public schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade. There was always a wariness mixed with excitement before each school year started. Who would my teachers be? But mostly – who would the other girls in my class be? Would Diane be back to mock me and make me feel small? Damned if she didn’t follow me from school to school until we moved in my 6th grade year. Decades before bullying became a news headline, it was – of course – still rampant.
~~~
…Wore stockings to school. Had a terrible lunch – meatball hero. (grade 7)
Today I went to school…Came home and washed dishes, made salad & whip ‘n chill. (grade 7)
…My hair turned out great.* It stayed in all day. Even when it rained. (grade 7)
~~~
*Dippity-Do – another back-to-school must have. That stuff (plus pink plastic curlers) was magic for curling straight hair.
September = shopping for school supplies. I loved this part. Wandering the aisles at Valley Fair. The 1960’s version of Walmart plus Woolworth’s plus creaky wooden floors. Everything was in there – 45’s and pocketbooks and stockings and Wrangler dungarees and cheap cosmetics…and in September…a whole aisle of paper. All kinds. Notebook paper. Lined and unlined. Graph paper. Pads of paper. Yellow pads. White pads. Packs of pens and pencils hanging from hooks on display. Bic pens. Flair pens. Yellow pencils. Colored pencils. Blue three-ring binders. Black and white composition books. Smooth, blank and full of potential. Pink erasers. Notebook dividers. Pencil cases. Rulers. Protractors. When I discovered cartridge pens – with the little ink cartridges and calligraphy tips built right in: Jackpot Fancy.
~~~
Tried on dresses so Grammy could shorten some. (grade 8)
Went to school. Hot out…After school I went to Westwood. Got a new pocketbook – has a chain handle. (grade 8)
~~~
I usually got a hair cut. So did my sisters and brother.
Haircut. New dress. New shoes. Lunch. Notebooks and schedule. Ready to go.
~~~
Today I went to school. Today was the opening of the high school for all students. I really felt crowded today. The lunch was good…. (grade 9)
~~~
As I got older, September also marked changes in my after-school life.
Grammar school: Chores. Playing army with my brother. Or building a fort with my friend Kathleen. Riding my bike. Playing kickball in the street.
High school: Chores and babysitting my siblings. Lots of babysitting my siblings. Listening to records & AM radio. Talking on the phone, shopping or baking with my girlfriends. At their houses. At Wendy’s it was snickerdoodles. At Vikki’s it was fudge. Or maybe we just ate her mother’s fudge, because she was such an amazing baker. Vikki and I used to joke that we would widen our doors for each other when we got older. Forecasting the obesity that never materialized.
…back to September and another tradition…
First Day of School Picture
8th grade
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Went to school…We had to write an imaginary story in English about what we would do with a super power. I picked invisibility. The lunch here is so much better than last year…On the way home the bus broke down & we had to change busses to get home…(grade 9)
Backyards are often places where families gather. Children run, jump, play, swim and learn about their outdoor world. For many, a backyard is where bare feet first touch blades of grass – or – where a squirrel is first spotted racing up a tree…
And in these vintage 35mm photos…
A backyard is for reading library books in a hammock with daddy.
~~~
And a backyard is where little brother and big sister cool off and share a sprinkler on a hot summer day.
Flash Fiction Challenge: August 30, 2018, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a bottleneck. You can be literal or use the term to describe congestion. Go where the prompt leads.
one letter UP ~ diary 2.0 