Thoughts on Today

First of all, the all new Digital Brew starts up at Scrapartist today! So, be sure to stop by and check out all the great inspiration! We're focusing on white space, titles and the fabulous art work of AKSheridan in the Fresh Brew and some journaling ideas in the House Brew! I really can't tell you how excited I am about the whole thing! I'm having a great time working with Candy and Lauren and I think it's gonna be a great place for all kinds of artists to hang out and share inspiration! I hope you'll be a part of it :)

On a much less enjoyable, albeit necessary note, I feel compelled to write a bit about my thoughts on 9-11. Five years later, it seems that everyone is in the mood to comtemplate that day and what it has meant for our country and I'm no different. It was definitely a day I won't ever forget. I woke up early that morning, Bob went to work at 6 or 6:30 am or something, so we were always up really early. I saw him off to work and went back to my own apartment (we lived next door to each other then) and turned on the morning news. Since we're three hours behind the east coast at this time of year, the first plane had just recently hit. They were saying that they thought maybe it was an accident, everyone was trying to figure out what was going on. But, I spent some time in New York in college and I couldn't imagine how it could be an accident, I mean I didn't even remember hearing planes overhead while I was there. As I was thinking this, the second plane hit. I couldn't believe it. I sat there, staring at the TV for a few minutes and then picked up the phone to call Bob at work. He had already heard too, so we talked for a minute, I don't even remember what we said other than I love you, and I hung up to get ready for class. I was in law school then - my first year - and although I just wanted to sit glued to my TV, I had to get to class. So, I got dressed and went, still shocked that New York, a city I loved, a city that seemed so immense and permanent and untouchable to me, was in smoke. I'll tell you, if there's anything more bizarre than discussing civil procedure and contract law in the face of all the pain and destruction, I don't know what it is. Our professors all thought we should go forward with class, so we did. But, people were on cell phones, trying to contact friends and loved ones in New York and we brought TV sets out into the lobby - everyone just sat there between classes in stunned silence, watching events unfold. Some of us got together to pray, others just hugged each other and cried. The law school environment is very intense, especially in that first year, and I think that really magnified the experience of that day for many of us. It was just such a weird contrast - to realize how insignificant the whole thing was in the face of these events and yet to still have to continue, because despite what happened, you were still in law school and all those pressures were still there. After that, I was glued to the news for days. I don't remember when I had to stop watching, but that time did come. Then slowly, life returned to normal, but always with that renewed reminder that we never know when our time will come. I had always been one to kiss my loved ones goodbye each day, to tell them I loved them and that I appreciated them, but 9-11 really drove that home for me. I still get up every morning (now at 5:30am) to make sure my husband knows he's loved each day when he leaves for work. A lot has changed since then, but that lesson of the preciousness of life and its fleeting nature has really stuck with me.

More important than my memories of that day, however, are my feelings about where we have come since then. Honestly, it makes me feel guilty, but it's hard for me to commemorate that day because I feel like we have lost so much in the last five years. The fear and uncertainty that that day brought about has been used to erode the very values that are at the core of our nation's strength and unique character. In this country, we honor the rule of law, we don't accuse judges of helping the enemy; we denounce torture and other human rights violations, we don't seek to hide it and excuse it by splitting hairs over definitions; we live in freedom and the knowledge that the government can't search our homes without cause, we don't have laws that allow agents to enter our homes without our knowledge and list to our phone calls without a warrant. Sadly I'm not sure those things are true anymore. I hope that like the times of national crisis we have faced in the past, the fear of this time will pass and those things will be true again. I hope that in the face of the evil that showed itself on 9-11 we will not let evil take hold of us too, but that we will instead hold firm to our values, to our beliefs, to the things that make this country great. I hope that we will chose freedom over fear. Because in the end, as Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." In the meantime, as I remember 9-11, I pray for our leaders, for our troops, for our citizens and even for our enemies. Let us all hope that a new era of peace and freedom may begin.