Three Years On

Where have we come in three years? How far have we traveled from that brilliant September morning? When I woke up this morning, I showered and headed for the golf course. It seemed to be just another beautiful late summer Saturday.

But on NPR they were talking about that other September morning. Nobody on the golf course talked about it. Almost as if it would somehow be wrong to speak of such horror while enjoying such a great day. On the way home the radio was still tuned to NPR and they were talking to survivors of the Pentagon attack.

Last night, on CNN, someone said something about the world being completely different after September 11, 2001. But the world only seems different if you really think about it. If you go through life without really remembering that specific day, if you squint your eyes just a little, that day almost disappears. And then you see the homemade memorial to the firefighters that appears on the same street corner every year now.

It's maddening to know that the mastermind behind the horror is still at large. And I've written a hundred times about how the current resident of the White House is culpable for his remaining free. And it would be wonderful if every so often on the evening news they could talk about the impending trial of Osama bin Laden. But they can't. And they don't.

More importantly, I think, is the journey we've all made since that day. Each journey has been different. Each has ended in a different way at a different place. Some of us have wound up staring down a sunlit fairway trying to figure out which club to pull from the bag. Others of us have ended up in a blisteringly hot desert, too far from home, staring down a sunlit street trying to figure out which weapon to grab.

I don't have a neat way to tie up this post. Mostly because I don't think we've come to a point where it's possible to tie up all we feel and think and remember about September 11 in a neat way. Thoughts spin off in a thousand different ways... splintering and shattering like glass. Maybe someday we'll be able to talk about that day like we talk about Pearl Harbor, like a day in history. Strange that three years could still be too close.

I hope you remembered today. I hope you found a little peace in your thoughts.