(Ok, so I started this a few days ago, but ran out of my daily quota time limit on the library computers. :P )

Well, it's been a month since everything happened. Seems like a long time ago, and yet just yesterday at the same time.

I went out to the Pentagon yesterday, and this hill overlooking the back of the building where the damage was. It's sort of become a pilgrammage site now, with several different displays of rememberance items set up. It's really interesting to see what people are doing in response, and who's responding too. A _lot_ of different ethnic organizations had left things, as well as quite a few foreigners too: an elementary school in Austrailia somehow managed to arrange a display of origami cranes to be put up in a tree as a symbol of peace. Another grade school (not sure from where) made paper chains to decorate a nearby fence. Someone else quoted JFK's innaugural address where he talked about few generations getting the priveledge to defend freedom in it's darkest hour (which I think is rather appropriate actually).

And most fascinating of all to watch are the people; they walk around, some in silence, some in awe. A few tears. And in many cases, just outright amazement and still disbelief even. It's much less than it was in the immediate days after, but there's still a steady stream of people out there with cameras, trying to capture the meaning and magnitude of what the burned out shell of Pentagon means.

(If you believe this, there's actually a sign posted saying "No Photography" outside the blast site at the Pentagon. I have a picture of it, with someone else in the backround take photos of the damaged area. It's not being enforced very well. :) )

A few of you getting this are teachers; I would be curious to know what it's been like in the classroom for you, and in particular how this has affected your lesson plans. I'd be happy to help out as I can with some local resources or a native's perspective on Washington life. I've thrown out a lot of papers from the last few weeks, although still have most of the Post's from the first few days after. It's been especially hard to read some of the articles they've done though; Sunday they had a series on the survivors and family members, which was pretty gut wrenching to read. A lot of the best stuff you still might be able to find online at www.washingtonpost.com in their archives section.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this musing, but I suppose there's some commonality of that with everyone else out there; what happened a month ago was just too overwhelming to digest, even in small increments, even over several weeks. Especially as events continue to unfold with Afghanistan. I can only hope that somehow we come out of this better, that things that we remembered in the days after the 11th about who and what were important are not lost.

Some people have gone overboard I think, buying up gas masks, and refusing to fly, etc. Security is bizarre here. The Smithsonians are doing bag checks to make sure no one smuggles in stuff. I went one day, after having picked up a magazine in a bookstore, so had that in a bag, which they checked. I very amusedly thought to myself "Ok, so you've seen that I'm subversively trying to sneak a copy of the Economist into the musueum, but since you don't have us passing through metal detectors yet, you know nothing about the pocketknife I have attached to my keychain, and that I've managed to enter your building with an actual _weapon_. :) Likewise, I stopped by one of the Congressional office buildings, and plunked my keys/pocketknife into the little bin as I went through the metal detector there, and was able to pick them back up on the other side after going through the security guardpost. (Which in addition to normal staffing, had 2 extra guards there that day, none of whom said anything to me.) So I was in the office building, which probably was a greater risk to more Congressional leaders than had I been in the Capitol, again with an actual weapon. :) At the same time, streets are being closed off randomly everytime someone spots a Ryder truck or something else they figure could be a car-bomb. I think a quote in a Post editorial a few days immediately afterward has best summed things up: (paraphrasing) "We are no more or less vulnerable than we were on Sept. 10th; we are just more aware (and scared) now."

I don't want to live my life in fear. I will not buy a gas mask (partly because I live in Washington; if anyplace can handle terrorist attacks, it's here. These guys know emergency contingencies, what with all the government around. 60 minutes did a story about emergency centers prepared to treat mass destruction casualties, and GW hospital they profiled on it is only about 15 minutes away from my apt. complex; I think that's actually closer than the hospital in my parents hometown.) I think we need to remember that most of all; terrorists want just that -- for people to live in terror. If we do that, then they win. And for all the people who died a month ago, we cannot desecrate their memory by letting the ones who did this succeed.

This weekend, public transit in Washington is free to encourage people to get out and resume "normal" lives, and I plan on getting out and seeing as much as I can. (There's actually quite a bit of interesting stuff set up to try and jump-start tourism. This is actually a pretty good time to be in DC. :) ) I have no intention of letting some disgruntled misanthrope scare me into living my life differently, or less than fully. If a plane drops out of the sky on top of me, or I open my mail and get anthrax, well, it was my time. But until then, I will stand tall and say defiantly that "I AM NOT AFRAID!!"

I still think the best thought I have managed to come up with for the 11th and successive events is thus:

It was the year of fire,
the year of destruction,
the year we took back what was ours.
It was the year of rebirth,
the year of great sadness,
the year of pain,
and the year of joy.
It was a new age.
It was the end of history.
It was the year everything changed.

Hope everyone is well. I love you all.