
“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” -Virgil
Twenty years ago today, I was attending a Thai Yoga workshop in Nevada City, CA. There were no TVs where we were staying, no cable or satellite services either. Instead, we got to see all the stars in the sky at night and hear the deer munching on crabapples outside our window.
I found out about the attacks after waking up earlier than usual because I was having terrible dreams. I switched on a transistor radio I had found in the studio just when the second tower fell. I remember the panic and the confusion – and having to move that radio at the best place possible every time to get reception.
Although disconnected from all the 24-hour news coverage, we all knew everything had changed. But we couldn’t remain in a state of panic forever. So we came together, smudged, meditated, and resumed the three-week workshop.
I would leave a week early and return home to a different world, quieter, wary, and in shock. Inside the taxi, the driver told me how lucky I was to be where I was the last two weeks, not to have witnessed the endless loop of images and sounds on TV.
I remember getting into my car as soon as he dropped me off so I could drive around for myself and really feel the change (and also get a burger because I’d only had vegetarian food at the workshop – and promptly got an upset stomach, probably from the shock of eating meat again).
Hard to believe it’s been twenty years.
#neverforget
On that morning, it was sunny and warm—looked like it was going to be a great day! Was walking down the hall and ran into someone who told me “World War 3 has started!” I scoffed, but he was insistent. So I ran to the caretakers room. They always had a TV on in there. Sure enough there was horrible footage of a plane crashing into the World Trade Centre. And then another one hit. It is embedded in my brain. What a horrible thing to do. My heart went out and still goes out to all who lost family and friends that day. The world changed in that moment.
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