Sunday, September 11, 2011

It Happens Every Year.....


I've been listening to the increased air traffic for the past week now. We live in the 'no fly zone' of Washington DC so you notice when a plane flies overhead. My story is that they are surveying the skies, in search of evil they can prevent. As a being that is fixed to the ground, I'm always a bit curious about how this would work.

This morning, this September 11 morning, I awake praying it would not be a crisp fall day with a cloudless blue sky. I am rewarded with a beautiful day that is not exactly like the fateful September 11 of ten years ago. Isn't is funny. I spend an enormous amount of energy working to recreate special moments in my life, hoping to remember the smells, lights and sounds that transform mere memory into today's reality. Yet, once a year I am automatically transported back to this one particular morning in my life where everything is crystallized with excruciating painful detail.

This year, I am reminded by the TV, newspapers and radios, it is different. This year marks the 10th anniversary. It's amazing how easy it is to sink back into the abyss. Movies, documentaries, ceremonies, memorials, editorials - inundated at will, I soak my heart in the memories and lives of those who perished and their people who lost love and still live life, seemingly to its fullest. At my home we are whole, physically untouched by the ravage of hate that changed the world that day. And yet, here I sit with a familiar anxiety that shortens my breath. I am left restless.

There are many like me. People who have heartbreak for all the suffering. People who live where these heinous acts occurred and who, with the wondrous and mysterious energy of life, were spared. I feel my pain and fear from ten years ago as acutely as I feel the light breeze from that crystal blue day. I remember the looks on the faces of those fleeing the City as I myself drove to my children. The haunting process had begun. It continues. I am quite certain I am not the only mother who gave her children strict instructions to stay off the metro and avoid downtown DC this weekend, and I was not the least bit cowed by the roll of their eyes. In fact, I think they listened. It will take more generations to transform this date out of life and into literature.

During that time after, when days became weeks, and weeks became months, my restlessness demanded more action than tracking air plane paths over my neighborhood. I became inspired to do more, serve more, be more in the world. It was a journey that took me to my home at the AANP, a safe place to learn and love, a place where service matters and work makes a difference. And in today's time 'after,' on the 10th anniversary of 9-11, I ponder this newly awakened restlessness of mine. I am startled with the fact I found this part of my life's work because of the events around 9-11, and now grapple with the fact this Anniversary coincides with my leaving the work I have loved so deeply. Indeed it is time to reaffirm my commitment to being a healing presence in the world.

One person, one act, one moment- repeat, repeat, repeat. This is how I will train my restlessness into action. This is the only way I know how to honor those who died. This is how I choose to change the world.