911 On Chestnut Street

911At 15 Chestnut Street

I knew that it was not good to sit in front of the TV hour after hour, but I was trying to figure out how two large commercial airliners could completely disappear into glass and steel walls of the Twin Towers. Over and over I watched the horrible videos. All the national networks assisted me in my quest to understand by showing the collisions from every possible angle in many different speeds. Experts on airplanes and construction and explosions expounded on a multitude of factors. Yet, it still seemed a magical illusion: like a magician who ties a rope in a tight knot, gives it a shake and the knot disappears.

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On 9-12 you put your hand on my shoulder. "You have to stop torturing yourself. What good does it do you to understand the physics of what happened? What's done is done. 3000 people have died. It can't help to know the exact details."

You were so right. I stopped watching TV completely because the videos had a way of sneaking into all the other programs. I stopped getting the Boston Globe each morning. It had become clear that overexposure to images of the crashes, the buildings slumping into themselves, the frightened people scattering in the streets with handkerchiefs over their faces, the transcriptions of cellphone calls from people trapped inside all had made me depressed. Perhaps, without constant media stimulation, I might get back to my life.

However, audio and video depravations were only effective at checking my dark moods for a short while before the stillness that surrounded me renewed the realization that something so horrible had happened that our world might never be the same as it was on September 10th.

We lived in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston directly under the flight path of planes landing and departing Logan airport. We were so accustomed to the noise of roaring jets that it had become a kind of white noise. There was also the continuous hum and sputter of traffic, both north and southbound, on the Tobin Bridge only a few yards away from our house.

Logan, where the American Airlines jets had departed on their way to Manhattan with murderers aboard, was completely closed. The Bridge, though it remained open, carried very little traffic. Missing were the base drum booms of empty dumpsters which woke me most mornings as they bounced on flatbeds carrying them across the bridge's expansion joints. Such peace and quiet got on my nerves eventhough I knew just what was behind the stillness: air traffic had been halted nationwide. People were not driving anywhere because everything had changed so quickly. We all stayed home because it might be dangerous to be outside.

The stillness of my life's background noises accentuated the sounds of a state of emergency: SIRENS! Sirens came every few minutes. Sirens came night and day as a cruiser or ambulance or fire truck sped by on the Bridge, racing so loud to a local emergency. The local first responders ran too late for anything, it seemed, except to annoy me back into depression.

Then there were the flyovers! You could set your watch to the military regularity with which B52's flew over the city at high altitudes. One was always headed east, while the second went west. They passed each other as sentries might do at a battlefield bivouac, hailing each other with an "all clear" or a dip of wings. Noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9, midnight, I could go into our small garden, look up and see the Air Force security guards.

September 17th we sat silently at breakfast. As another siren screamed by, I asked "Are you feeling any better about what is happening? Nearly a week has passed."

"Well", you cleared your throat with a sip of coffee. "I guess so. A little, anyway. When the School Committee decided to reopen the buildings, it felt like a return to normal, but the students still don't want to talk about anything else except "The Towers'. Even at recess they gather in groups to discuss someone they knew who died or relate stories about people who jumped from the high buildings as if to fly to safety. At Friday's regular assembly students and staff put on small plastic bracelets each with the name of a victim stamped on it. I started to cry again."

"Let's get away for a couple days" I suggested. Go up to Waterford. Get away from all the mourning. President Bush has called for a day of prayer. He has asked everyone to light candles, pray for the victims, try to get back on track".

"Good idea, Bob" you said. "Away from all this mourning and sadness we might be able to gather some positive thoughts and move on".

That afternoon, after packing lightly for an overnighter, we headed north on a nearly deserted U.S. Route 1. A speedy trip found us at Kittery before dusk, where we exited the highway onto our favorite back road through Berwick, Waterboro, Limerick and Steep Falls. As we approached Little Ossipee Lake in Waterboro, a bright late summer afternoon had faded into quiet dimness.

Families along the road began to gather outside their homes. Some had placed burning candles in paper bags for protection from the wind. These glowed like paper Chinese lanterns in a row on their lawns. One family stood together behind their lanterns. In the pale light of dusk and the glowing light of the candles they held hands, bowed their heads and prayed silently.

Without saying a word, you pulled the car off the road. We sat with our own heads bowed, tears leaking down our cheeks. After a couple minutes you started the car again and returned to our journey. We continued on in silence without any acknowledgement of what had just happened. Several days passed before we spoke of it.

By that time we were both back at work feeling nearly, but not wholly, normal.