Remembering that day

"it felt like the whole country was under attack, and i wanted to gather
everyone i loved together and lock them in a room."
--a woman from the April '05 Kids board


That's exactly how I felt. I was asleep. A few months before, I'd gotten an apartment and was living alone for the first time. I went to sleep and woke up to the phone ringing. It was TheHusband, then TheFiance. He sounded so scared. He told me about all three flights. I spent the rest of the day until I had to go to work glued to the tv set and Peter Jennings in his brown tie with white polka dots. I knew it was a really intense day when he took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and undid his top collar button. I was so comforted to see him still there. If Peter Jennings was still at his desk, it had to be okay.

I remember going outside--the sky was blue, the birds were singing, it was a gorgeous day, and it was so weird not to see any planes in the sky. I remember how something so awful could have happened on such a beautiful day?

I was working in reservations for a large hotel chain at the time, and called to see what was going on. Our ops guy said it was the slowest he'd ever seen it. We were doing anything the customers wanted at that point, even cancelling reservations that it was considered to late to cancel on. I got maybe one call every 20 minutes or so. As scary as that day was, it was the only day at that job that it felt that every caller on the other end of the line knew that I was a person, not just a nameless, faceless operator. I'd never felt so close to strangers.