This is obviously a very somber day packed with all kinds of meaning. I've been reading posts throughout the blogosphere and the traditional media about how the Bush administration is exploiting what should be a day of national unity for partisan gain. I'd like my own post to be a bit more personal. I'm going to write about my own memory of that day.

Unlike most of my friends and colleagues in Tucson, I actually lived in New York State five years ago today. Not in the city, mind you. Ithaca is about a four and a half hour drive from the city (we just call it "the city" back east). I grew up about an hour from the city. While I never lived there, it was still a big presence - and popular destination - in all our lives. It's a familiar and oddly comforting place.

I was working for the local rape crisis center in Ithaca. It was a Tuesday morning, and I got into the office around 9, even though our hours were 8:30 to 4:30 (some things never change). Shortly after I arrived, one of my co-workers, Kathy, received a phone call from her husband Mike that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. Details were sketchy, but I guess the oddity of the situation is what prompted him to call. We all just assumed it was one of those small twin engine planes or something.

I hopped online (we only had dial-up, and only because I was a home subscriber) to try and find more information. The CNN.com page started to load and then stopped. I couldn't understand why at first, until I realized it was the overload of traffic to the site, coupled with our slow connection. I tried a few other news sites, but it was the same across the board. Kathy had turned her radio on (she was our therapist, and I guess she didn't have any clients that morning) and soon we were hearing reports about the second plane hitting the WTC.

By this point, we all knew something was very much awry. Kathy's dad worked for the government on some kind of water use project (I think) and our boss Kate's dad was in Washington, DC on a vacation trip of some sort. They were both understandably concerned for their fathers. Our receptionist Tina was married to an EMT. She and I drove over to their headquarters a few blocks away to watch some of the news coverage on their large screen TV and report back to our co-workers. What we saw horrified us. There, clear as day and repeated in a seemingly endless loop, was footage of the second plane crashing. It was while we were standing there transfixed (I don't know why we never say down) that the towers began to collapse.

That was all Tina or I could take at that point. We drove back to the office and updated our co-workers on what happened (we were a staff of 6). Kate decided that we should cancel any remaining appointments for the day and close down. I had a lot of friends from college who moved to the city after graduation about a year and a half earlier. They were clearly at the forefront of my mind.

After closing up shop, we all went over to Kathy's house to watch more news coverage. Kate and Kathy were of course numb with concern about their family members. I too was having a very hard time processing what might have become of all the talented, decent friends who were now more or less in the eye of the storm. We also learned about the attack on the Pentagon (which didn't help Kathy's or Kate's angst any) and the crash in a Pennsylvania field. The whole day just seemed so surreal. People were talking, but it was all such a fog. We were traumatized.

The days and weeks following the attack are also still vivid for me. I remember moments. I remember Congress singing the national anthem on the steps of the Capitol. I remember thinking to myself, "how is Bush going to exploit this?" I don't know if I should be proud or not to say that I was among the 8%-10% of Americans who did NOT approve of the President in the immediate aftermath. He just seemed so smarmy and duplicitous. My friend Jay was positive that these attacks would be used to justify a war with Iraq. Jay is one smart cookie.

I remember my friend Tara trying to organize a candlelight vigil at the pond behind the chapel on campus (she was still a student). She, her girlfriend at the time and I were the only ones there, but it was a comforting and tender moment, an opportunity for the three of us at least to share our grief and concern. I remember mourning.

Thankfully, all my friends who had moved to the city came out unscathed. My friend Leon was working across the Hudson in New Jersey and saw everything from his office window. My friend Dara lived or worked in lower Manhattan and things changed drastically for her after that. My parents had airline tickets to go visit one of my siblings a few weeks after the attacks. I was petrified about them flying, but they were so resolute (at least to me). I was kind of impressed by that.

Having had crisis intervention training and being certified as rape crisis counselors, my colleagues and I were informed by the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault that we might be called upon to travel to the city to provide crisis counseling for the survivors. Tina's husband Eric, the EMT, was very nearly dispatched in the immediate aftermath to help with the search and rescue operation at ground zero. They had two young daughters and she was beside herself with worry that he would have to leave them and potentially put his life on the line.

The Red Cross blood banks were desperate for blood. Not so desperate apparently that they wouldn't lift their archaic ban on donations from gay men. It appears that even in a time of national crisis, bigotry and discrimination still reigned supreme.

Slowly life returned, if not to normal, at least to a daily routine. The world kept spinning. The bombs would soon start falling in Afghanistan, the beat of the war drums could soon be heard in Iraq, but in Ithaca and throughout New York State, life went on in any way we could muster. We knew - we still know - that even killing 3,000 of our countrymen and women will not change our way of life. We refuse to live in fear. We refuse to blindly follow dishonest leaders who would sow and exploit such fear.

On this, the fifth anniversary of that fateful day, it is important to remember the terrible violence that we suffered. But we should never, NEVER let the actions of those 19 cowards convince us to live in fear or sacrifice our liberties (which, I'm told, is why they hate us so much - though I'm skeptical) for some small measure of security.

I don't believe we lost our national innocence that day (see: assassinations, Lincoln and Kennedy; see also: Watergate). I do believe we lost the illusion that we are the most beloved nation in the world. The truth can hurt, but it's often necessary to learn and grow.

In closing, a note about comments. My faithful readers (both of you) haven't really discovered the comment feature on the blog. Just click on the "# Comments" link below this post and leave a comment for me or talk about your own memories of the day. One of the points of a blog is to share information, so rather than e-mailing me (as several of you have done), leave a comment! You don't have to register or anything.