Remembrance

The events that change the course of personal and collective history. Remembering 9.11.

Where were you?

I've never met anyone who doesn't remember where they were or what they were doing that day, at the time of attack.

Today, I placed a note of remembrance and love on my altar for all those who lost their lives, for all those whose lives were directly touched by death that day, and all those who rushed in to support and to save lives.

For me, 9.11.01 was a catalyst.

I was driving to work on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, early morning in Seattle. I was hungover. I was shocked that a plane could have gone off course that dramatically as I listened to an eyewitness for NPR describe the scene.

I turned the radio off before the second plane hit.

When I got to work, I walked into the board room, and the TV was on. The towers were burning, and they were showing footage of people jumping out of burning buildings, which was later taken off the air.

My boss, the CFO, turned to me and said, "We are under attack." I could not believe it. I couldn't stop watching. Even from the opposite coast, it was devastating. We closed the office down, and everyone went home.

On the way home, I wondered why I was so miserable. Why I stayed in a job that sucked the life out of me. It was painfully clear - life can change in an instant. Life is so precious. 9.11 highlighted for me just how precious and just how much I was wasting my one wild and precious life.

But I didn’t know how to change… yet.

Shortly after, there was a massive earthquake in Seattle.

The building next to ours collapsed. The Starbucks building down the street began sinking into the earth. The ONLY reason our building was still standing was the initial CFO of the company had insisted on earthquake retrofitting (the building was an old brick icehouse).

These two events, so close together, shook me awake.

I needed a powerful catalyst to rouse me from my drunken stupor. Though 9.11 was infinitely tragic, it was a vital aspect of the wake-up call that pushed me toward doing things differently. Shortly after, I stopped drinking and changed damn near everything about my life.

Today, in sadness for lives lost, I also feel gratitude for the wake-up call and all the ways that I, and my life, have changed in the ensuing years.

I will certainly never forget that day.