this numb feeling

I knew something was wrong when the phone kept ringing yesterday morning. Unexpected phone calls are bad omens in my world. All night I dreamed of blood and terror and death, wakingup with a pounding heart and sweat slick skin. Three hours later, I would learn the first time I rolled over and looked at my clock was the moment the first plane smashed into the World Trade Center.

I did nothing of what I planned yesterday. I watched news coverage, the never ending loop of horror and fire. The image of the second plane smashing into the tower is burned into my brain, perhaps even more than the Challenger explosion I saw in my kindergarten classroom.

For the first time in my life, I felt truly afraid of what could happen. I've watched the world long enough to know that America couldn't be immune to terrorism, it's not that I ever thought we were free from that. But I was afraid, irrational as it sounds. When I heard they were closing down Houston, and parts of Austin, it started to hit me.

Last night I went to the vigil on the Main Mall, under a darkened Tower. Governor Perry and Larry Faulkner spoke, and we sang "Amazing Grace." It was the first time I have ever seen so many UT students so quiet.

I wept, for the people on those planes, the people at their office windows, the people on the stairs, for the firefighters helpless to help in the early hours. For everyone here and there.

I do not know how to concentrate on school today.

I was there at about this time last year with Patrick, and I remember the skyline, the buildings beneath our wings.