Or will we? Six years after the largest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, it was hard to distinguish today from any other Tuesday. There were a few reminders here and there, but it wasn't enough for me, who stood outside my Georgetown office on Tuesday September 11, 2001 and watched in horror and disbelief as unimaginably large billows of smoke rose from the Pentagon, just across the Potomac River.
I remember driving to work that day - listening to NPR around 8:40am EDT when the regular news cast was interrupted by a report of a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers in Manhattan. I didn't think much of it at first - except what a terrible accident, by a horrible pilot! I mean - to be so close buildings in lower Manhattan in the first place seemed utterly careless. It hadn't yet crossed my mind that it was intentional. When I arrived at work around 9:00am, however, my coworkers were gathered around the TV in our little conference room. They all stood still and in silence. I joined them and quickly realized the magnitude of what was happening, although in utter shock and disbelief. After some time, the horror took an unimaginable turn as the first tower collapsed before our eyes. We all stood and prayed that the other tower might not collapse, although that now seemed impossible. We feared the worst, as some of my coworkers had friends or classmates who worked in the Twin Towers, and all of us were keenly aware of the number of people working in those buildings. Eventually, we all watched in shock and horror as that second tower came down. I felt my insides knot with grief.
After an unclear amount of time glued to the television, our boss suggested we go back to work for a while. After all, what else could we do? It didn't seem right to try and work at all, but I was a brand-new, obedient employee. My first day at my new firm was only
one day before: Monday, September 10, 2001. So, feeling like a fish completely out of water, I went back to my office and tried to read some
something that has since become completely irrelevant in my life.
Later in the morning, the local news came. Six years later, it is a bit of blur to me. At first, the reports were inaccurate and confusing. We heard different things: "There is a fire on the National Mall," "There is a bomb at the State Department." These reports hit frighteningly close to home. The State Department was, after all, about six blocks away from our office in Georgetown. Then, the panicked phone calls started. One of my coworkers was married to a State Department attorney and she feared for his safety. Phone lines were beginning to jam. A little while later, the real news came. Our office manager, who had been near the television the whole morning, sent out an office-wide email to let us know that the Pentagon had been attacked. At that point, people across the city of Washington began to flee. Threats against other sites were rumored and no one felt safe. Our boss still did not send us home, although several other employees in our small firm decided it best to pick up their children from school or day care and head home. At least they could be with their families. Being young, single, and having no one to turn to, I stayed through lunch. Moby Dick's House of Kabab was next door and offered a quick place to eat. It was packed, but eerily quiet. Only quiet conversations of the days events. No one felt like talking - and many didn't eat much.
As I returned from lunch, what I saw put a chill in my heart and an image in my head that I will never forget. Our little Georgetown office was only three miles or so from the Pentagon: basically on the other side of the Potomac River. As I stood outside our row-house office, I could see unimaginably large clouds of smoke billowing from the Virginia side of the river, drifting off toward the West. I just couldn't believe it. How could this be? How could this be? How could this be?...That was all I could think.
Finally, our boss "let" us decide how to handle the day. I decided to go home. I doubted my ability to concentrate at all - and I didn't feel entirely safe in Washington, DC at that point anyway. I trekked down to my car and the parking attendant at the riverside lot let me go without paying. He said he didn't feel right collecting money from anyone in light of what was happening. In retrospect, it seems odd, but at the time it made perfect sense.
Then came the traffic. Several of the bridges out of the city had been closed. Maybe metro stations were closed as well? I can't remember, although I know several friends who chose to walk many miles home rather than use public transportation. My route out of the city, Canal Road, which parallels the Potomac, was a complete standstill by 2pm on the gorgeous blue-skied September day. For once, I couldn't have cared less about the traffic. Any thing I suffered was a mosquito bite compared to the tragedy that others faced - and would face - on that day and days to come. I have never seen Washingtonians wait out a traffic jam so patiently as they did on September 11, 2001.
Some two - maybe three - blurry blue-skied hours later, I arrived back at my apartment in Germantown, Maryland. I managed to get through on the telephone to my family back in Missouri. I retreated under the covers in my bedroom and cried until I could cry no more. I cried mostly for the victims and their families - many of whom would have to wait for days even months in anguish before knowing the fate of a loved one. I also cried in fear. I worried that somehow, a group of masked terrorists might be lurking in my neighborhood, ready to murder anyone they encountered. Absurd, I know, but in a day filled with unbelievable events, it seemed completely plausible to me at that time.
Several hours later, I did something strange: I went to a rehearsal for a dance group I was part of. Once again, I was surprised that our director had not canceled our rehearsal. Obediently, almost blindly, I made the long drive. On any other Tuesday around 7:00p.m., the traffic would have been intense, but on this day it was non-existent. I hope that I never experience that again. The highway message boards read "AVOID WASHINGTON METRO AREA." I didn't turn back, even though our rehearsal was in Arlington, Virginia. I must have been comforted to have someone tell me what to do and how to respond. I saw only a handful of cars in the roughly 30-mile drive to Arlington. In an urban area where at least four-million people live, this is an impossibly rare sight. In fact, I was worried I might be arrested for driving, although I hadn't heard anything prohibiting it.
The most terrible part was that as I approached Arlington, the clear, early-evening September sky was cut by a faint smoke that had now drifted further West along I-66 and the Potomac River from the Pentagon. Along with that smoke was an odd and deathly smell. (An olfactory memory I hope never is revived.) I remember very little of the rehearsal itself, except one comment by a British member of our group who insisted that his grandmother, who had survived WWII air raids in London would be proud that we carried on with our lives on such a dreadful day. I don't know. Maybe he was right. The rest of the day was a complete blur. I don't remember the drive home at all. I must have been entranced or numbed by incomprehensibleness of it all.
The days that followed contained constant reminders of the attacks - as if we could somehow forget them. Armored Humvees were stationed every several blocks throughout the city. Anti-aircraft missiles on military vehicles stood poised to fire near the Pentagon. Red Cross blood banks were overflowing for a change. There was an American flag on every highway overpass in the region, if not two or three. Firemen stood at intersections around the city to collect money for their fallen colleagues. Many roads remained closed around the Pentagon for months. Security was heightened at every government facility across the city. Worst of all, the smoke from the Pentagon continued for days. Best of all, there was a sense of unity and peace between people of different backgrounds that I have never witnessed before or since.
Sadly, there was also paranoia. There was hostility towards anyone who might have remotely resembled a Middle Easterner. Indian Taxi drivers wearing turbans experienced ignorant slurs from ignorant, terrified, patrons. A popular Afghan restaurant in Georgetown was vandalized. Some people turned the events into an opportunity to reach out to strangers, while others built walls: both invisible and real. Entire industries developed from the attacks and those "walls." Inwardly, I found myself fighting an ignorant sense of suspicion of people who looked different from me. Outwardly, I did my best to project peace and welcome to anyone around me: be they black, white, Middle Eastern, or central Asian. My outward acts eventually prevailed in my inward battle.
Now, six years later, I wonder what we have taken and what it is that "We Will Not Forget." A few days ago, I saw a sign for a town recycling meeting to be held on Tuesday, September 11. Did anyone else find this irreverent?
I didn't personally organize any sort of memorial or ceremony myself - and deliberately decided
not to address the subject in my classes for a variety of reasons. Still, I expected this day to feel different from other days. I expected an opportunity to reflect and remember. There was no such opportunity during my day. So here I am, writing my own reflection and trying to recall the day and trying to determine what it is that I "Will Not Forget."
(NOTE: I will save any discussion of the Iraq war for another day, as it is completely unrelated, albeit extremely important, in my opinion - except as a terribly, terribly flawed response to September 11.)
For me, September 11, 2001 will always be a reminder that peace cannot happen without action. Peace requires action, the same way that love requires action. To feel love, without expressing it or showing it, even if only in a quiet way, is not love at all. Peace is the same. It requires action. Peace must be expressed. It must be demonstrated through actions. I hope that I can live my life through continual acts of peace. I know I am imperfect and I make many mistakes in my attempt to demonstrate peace. Nonetheless, I hope I can always strive to express peace. I hope I can always keep that at the front of my life.
This is what I "Will Not Forget."
At last I reach Kahuku. As I roll into the tiny one-stoplight town, I pass the Kahuku Sugar Mill. Now a historic site, the Sugar Mill used to be an important part of the North Shore's economy.
With the tub in our possession, we could begin planning how exactly the it would go in the bathroom and how we wanted it framed.
George designed and began work on the frame for the tub. 
On a subsequent trip to Lowe's, we learned that the window we'd special-ordered had arrived! With the tub still serving as a play area for Quincy in our living room, this turned out to be the perfect time to install the beautiful new window!
It was amazing how quickly George had a giant hole in our bathroom wall. Check back soon for a video of this process.
With the window at last installed, Quincy inspected the work and gave us the "ok" for the next stage of our remodeling.
You can see more pictures of the latest stage in the project by clicking right here.
The"Before" Shot
The First Strikes
Ripping Walls is FUN!
The View at the End of Day 1.
Little gecko on the wall,
