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Week Twenty-Six, September 10-16
Sunday, September 16, 2001
Natalie and I ventured back to Puget Gulch this evening, making another step back to a more normal life, and after walking half way up the trail and back down, we spent some time exploring what was new in the gardens. That was where we found the racoon footprint in the photo below along the side of the stream bank near the north end of the park.
After leaving Puget Park, we wandered over to walk the shoreline at the Dickman Mill Park, where I snapped the photo above of our shadows as we looked east toward the old mill site. We are really going to enjoy visiting this new park every week, to track the change of the seasons and see how the plants fare over time in the new saltwater marsh created as part of the park.
On our way home from the waterfront we drove past the no-longer-staffed fire station along Ruston Way, and there alongside the new Fireman's Memorial statues is a display of flowers, notes and momentos related to the terrorist attacks and the fallen firefighters in New York. Two firefighters played bagpipes while we looked on...somber...reverent...sad...
Saturday, September 15, 2001
On this day we brought some of our friends together to meet and greet each other and talk about our reactions to this week's happenings. It was a great chance to catch up with friends, to hear how each of us reacted to and heard about the attack on New York and Washington, D.C.
I wandered outside for my photo today after I spent a few minutes weeding and taking down the pea trellis in the garden. Digging my hands in the soil, I was literally finally grounding and letting some of the chaos and energy that has built up this week run out of me and back to the core. It felt good to dig, to get dirt under my nails. And while it is always a bit sad to put the garden to bed for the winter, that sadness seems trivial in comparison to the sadness pervading everything this week. My photo on this day is a white rose bloom along the south side of the house.
Friday, September 14, 2001
Planes are back in the air, and nearly every time one passes overhead I find myself craning to see...is it military? Civilian?
We made an effort to move on today, to slowly ease into a new world where we have to look over our shoulders, where planes and not just planes, where the former sense of security we once took for granted here in the U.S. is compromised. As part of getting back to life, we attended an Audubon Society meeting tonight, to listen to a birding expert talk about the variety of birds that can be found in the Sequim area. It was nice to think of nature for a while and not be glued to the latest news. Things are far from normal on this national day of mourning...but this was a start.
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Things feel different today. What once seemed commonplace in this part of North Tacoma where the sounds of civilian and military jets flying overhead is normally a nearly constant drone is now alarming. I notice every jet that roars overhead, looking up when just a day or two ago it wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Meanwhile, Navy ships patrol the waters of Puget Sound on the lookout for the first time in decades for any signs of hostility.Closer to home, I am reading Weblogs and newspaper reports, wary of what will happen next. A column from the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper by Nadirah Z. Zabir titled: For American Muslims, a familiar disquiet strikes my heart, leaving me to hope that we are not about to do a wide-scale repeat of the discrimination that fell upon Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. And meanwhile in my work on the Internet, my attempts to calm those who angrily call for violence against all Arab people are resulting in anger against me. I even found myself removing the address information from my online resume today in a feeble effort to keep any personal attacks against my work from landing on my doorstep.
While I am still looking at the changing seasons outside, hearing the birds even more now for the lack of airplane noise, and at times yesterday in the dead silence hearing the wind rustling through the trees, my mind is elsewhere...
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
The day-after coverage is beginning in the New York Times Web site:
"This unfathomable tragedy reminds me of the original reason the Internet was invented in 1969 Ñ to serve as a decentralized network that couldn't be brought down by a military attack," said Rogers Cadenhead, who said he set up the WTCattack list because most of the Web sites reporting news had ground to a halt. "Amateur news reporters on weblogs are functioning as their own decentralized media today, and it's one of the only heartening things about this stomach-turning day."I think there is something to be said for the way the Internet has been so useful in the grieving process for so many people, and how it has done as a news medium during this horrible day that is still nearly four hours from ending on the Pacific Coast...
Dave Winer, a writer and software developer from California, is hosting a great collection of writings on today's attacks and their impact on people. His Weblog is at Scripting.com.
For those who read my Weblog, I just want to send all my prayers and hopes for the recovery of those who are suffering from the attacks on the U.S. today. Since rising from bed around 8 a.m. PDT, I have been glued to the news and horrible images of buildings collapsing. This is a horrible day, a feeling of hopelessness that I cannot even imagine America felt even at the beginning of the Second World War.
Monday, September 10, 2001
The sun is shining and this is another brilliant September day here in Tacoma, in the heart of Puget Sound country. It is days like this that remind me why I like fall so much. Foggy mornings, sunny days and some of the most beautiful sunsets and dusky hours of the year invite me to stop, look and listen. And temperatures are much cooler and more comfortable on most days. There are no two ways about it...I love fall...
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