Where I Was

Where was I on 9/11? I was in Holland on a long-awaited journey into my past and my future. I wanted to see how all my parts fit together, and what might happen to the whole.
On 9/11, I was sitting at home alone, surfing the channels. My father and B were out grocery shopping. The house was pretty dark, and I was enjoying the aloneness. We'd been around each other a lot in the preceding weeks, and were, in fact, scheduled to come home on 15 September.
I ended up on CNN, and I saw the first plane hit the tower. I thought it was a movie special effect, and then I saw the second plane hit. Then I knew it was real. I sort of sat there in shock, and then I wanted to say something, but there was no one else there. It was a weird feeling. I just didn't know what to do.
B and my dad finally came home. We watched the news- stunned. What do you say? We watched it over and over again, but nothing got better. I don't even remember if we called my mother- I think my dad did. Since she was on the west coast, she found out after it had happened..

What was unexpected was that neighbors that we hadn't even met came over to say how sorry they were about the attacks. The owner of the house said that we could stay there as long as we needed if we couldn't return home as scheduled. The kindness of strangers... It was all a great upheaval, and we had no precedent to guide us. We didn'tnow if we were going to get home, if we had to contact a bunch of people to rearrange our return
As it was, we were able to return. Our tickets were through a Canadian airline (read cheap), and while their were no U.S. flights going out of Schiphol, the Canadian ones were. I'm not sure if I should say we were lucky...