Just a building, Wallace, NC.
Ten years ago today the world changed. It was 9/11, but I measure by that date because of the shifts in my personal world as well as the world-at-large. Sometimes we need to remember the large historic events because they are marks for the events of our small personal histories. On 9/11 itself I was teaching at Pender, we heard the news from Mr. Hayes in the car shop, thought it was yet another misguided small plane. Then the radio began broadcasting- news from New York, Pennsylvania, Washington. I remember huddling with students in Mr. Keiths office, watching tv- tv's in the hallways on carts, flags sprouting suddenly everywhere, cello music on NPR driving home each day. On the island they had us register and gave us iodine in case of a nuclear emergency at the power plant- even for our pets they did this. A long strange dark dream, people planning on wrapping their homes in duct tape and plastic bags to keep safe. A lone farmer and his tractor protesting something and shutting down all of DC. Memorials every where.
This was the fall that Daddy was sick, and we traveled back to Pennsylvania often. Grendel had just turned 12, and we would ride together forever back and forth, sleeping, singing, talking. For me that Fall was wrapped up in the smell of apples and corn mazes, medicine and waiting for the phone to ring. When home we cooked, walked, prayed, listened. We went to Shanksville and took with us the memorial my students made- but what I remember was a green sloping field scattered with hay bales, covered with flags. A black dress on the ground with pictures and candles. Small bundles of red cloth tied into trees. More flags.
I remember the apple tree in the back yard of the house on Minno drive, Grendel picking apples, sniffing them. He smelt like them for the rest of the year it seems- I have a photo of him, pale and serious in a faded plaid shirt, apple in hand staring at the sky.
Since then, things of changed. Daddy died that winter, and I miss him. Mother moved to Texas, and the family center drifted West with her- and I miss her. Grendel is on his own, discovering the world. My nephews and nieces grew up, living their lives, birthing a new generation.
That year was my last year at Pender high- I moved on to the new school, new things. I went back to college, got my degree, started another. Moved from my beloved island into the cottage. Fell in love, married again. Learned to live in the country, drink coffee black, wait tables, paint animals, work an auction and work on line. Replaced the smell of the sea with the smell of the fields and forest. Sometimes I miss the mountains, the trees burning, the grime of tunnels, mills, houses tall and old and dusty down in Moxham, Cambria City. Sometimes, I don't.
Life, memory, distance- Daddy sits in his box in our studio, on his special shelf. I wonder what he thinks about things- he was always a thinker, a keeper of logs and journals and daily notes. I think he would love digital cameras, GPS, the way we have all turned out. In my dreams- and I dream of him often- he is always at a restaurant with mother, always being himself. Eating, drinking, talking, laughing, being a bit of a curmudgeon- happy enough of an afterlife, I suppose- if the service is good and the portions ample.
