Don't you just love September?

I really love the summer, so I almost feel guilty for how much I love the fall, too. Indian summers are typical in Seattle, and this year was no exception. The entire long month of August, especially every weekend, was perfect: lots of sunshine and a light, arid sea breeze. It’s a great summer here when we’re actually worried about the lack of rainfall. I seem to forget from one year to the next how brown the evergreen state can get. But the temperature seemed to dip no lower than the mid 70s and peak no higher than the 80s. We could not have asked for a better summer, just that it last a bit longer.

As though on cue, the weather shifted ever so slightly after Labor Day. The air smelled different, felt different, and the winds began to change. Wispy clouds painted a little thicker texture on the canvas of the sky, and there were sunsets of a southwestern palette here in the northwest. In July, the sun would set at nearly ten. Now, less than two months later, the evening comes two hours earlier.


It’s interesting that the fall, a symbolic death of summer, and the coming of winter, is also somewhat culturally synonymous with rebirth: new school year, football season, hunting season, even network television line up. Though I am without my own school year for which to prepare, and without children to prepare for theirs, I miss the clothes shopping and all the new school supplies. Some old habits die hard. I wish I could still justify getting myself a new box of 64 Crayolas every year.

So instead, I join the office football pool, sample new TV series, transition from sandals to boots, and trade mojitos for spiked apple cider. It will be soon enough that the skies are thick with gray, the days will end before work, and I’ll be walking home in the dark. But for now, I just enjoy September as I try not to slip on the leaves scattered on the sidewallk when I’m walking downhill.

Where were you five years ago today?

It was a Tuesday in Seattle. I was at Elija’s. I got up and hopped in the shower: business as usual. He didn’t work the same schedule as me, but sometimes he would wake up and flip through the channels and find MASH or some early morning movie. As I turned off the water in the shower, I could hear that the same was true on this particular day, and thought nothing of it.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, I could see one tower of the World Trade Center on fire through the reflection in the mirror. But it didn’t register. Elija thought he was watching Die Hard or something, until of course he saw the same thing on every channel. It was early in the morning on the west coast, and it took us a few moments to come to grips. I would think it would take anyone time to come to this reality, no matter what time of day. As he filled me in, explaining that we had no idea what was happening at that point, and my eyes were fixed on the screen, the second plane hit the second tower. I made some kind of sound, and my knees buckled beneath me. I will never forget that very moment. That moment when that plane didn’t come out on the other side, and we knew this wasn’t an accident.

I didn’t go to work that day - I called in numb. I didn’t do much of anything but stare expectantly at the TV and cry, grieving in much the same way I imagined was the rest of the country. We didn’t leave the house except to walk across the street for Subway around 3:30 p.m. and to the convenient store for beer. I was perfectly content that day to continue watching the raw, piercing, tragic news, and do so with the assistance of a mind-numbing elixir.