Today is September 11th. We all know what that means now - the anniversary of one of the biggest tragedies in modern American history, the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It's been 25 years - a whole lifetime. There are grown-ass adults, some with kids of their own already, who weren't even born when the disasters happened.

Living in Seattle, you'd think we'd have been too far from the east coast crashes to be as affected, but you'd be wrong. Every American knew somebody who worked in those towers, or lived in New York, Pennsylvania, or Washington D.C. where the hijacked planes were used as weapons. We all know someone who died or survived, or lost someone close to them. And, of course, there was the whole significance of the U.S. being attacked on its own soil (by non-Americans) for the first time ever. (Hawaii was not yet a state when Pearl Harbor was bombed in World War II.)

I remember waking to the news, watching the devastation on the news- every channel, every station- and watching as the second tower was hit and we all, collectively, knew it was not an accident. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach was echoed across the world, I'm sure.

The moratorium on air travel for three days created an unexpected oasis for me. I live in central Seattle, beneath the flight paths to Sea-Tac (SEA) airport, where the landing gear comes down pretty much right above my home. For years, I would notice the electro-magnetic disruptions this caused to my home: Antenna TV pictures would wobble, and once we had digital television, the screen would go blue for a few seconds. Both my landline telephone and my cell phone experienced disruptions - dropped calls, static, etc. when the planes fly overhead. But for three days, there were no planes. My shoulders dropped- I hadn't even realized I'd been holding tension due to the airplane noise and electronic disruptions. 

The feeling of a nation holding its breath was palpable. 

I keep meaning to get back to posting here, but somehow I haven't.