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Showing posts from December, 2008
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The Air Force and Pentagon Memorials, Fall 2008
8. Thinking of Central Asia, Fall 2002 9/11’s airplanes did get me to Central Asia though, if not yet knocked up. It’s cliché but true that tragedy and loss are great motivators for those who survive them and/or are not directly touched by them. As I related before, I wrote to the Peace Corps when I was 15 and then I just waited. For what, I don’t know. After Spain and meeting the boy who would be my boyfriend for a long time, he and I moved first to New Brunswick, NJ, and then to Manhattan. Paying over $1,500 monthly for a ragged room that was a hotel back in the olde steam ship days. I had a job, working at a nonfiction publishing company. He rocked back and forth between jobs, fired and unemployed, and I guess I thought I had settled into “life.” That said, during this time, pre-2001, I still thought of Peace Corps at times, my hyper-romanticized version of it, of course. The planes smacked me out of my lethargy and emboldened me to announce to Steve one night while eating Indian f
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Photos from Fiesta DC, September 2008

7. Interlude: Today & September 11, 2001

Perhaps it is all getting too philosophical so I’ll bring my story back more to the now as much of the book, heretofore, has been recollection. My husband’s younger brother and his girlfriend had a baby yesterday. Today’s my mom’s birthday. One of my closest childhood friends who now lives in Utah (and no, she’s not Mormon although she is blonde) had a baby boy less than four weeks ago. So much reproduction! I’ve lived these many years never getting pregnant or having a child. Why? After the pristine sky of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, was obscured by burning jet fuel and the blood of too many, I thought to myself: What if I had died today? What is there in the trajectory of a “normal” life that I’d like to have or experience? With that simple question, the obvious resolutions of traveling more, reaching out to friends more, maintaining relationships better, solidifying and fostering them, etc., popped into my mind. Stop being so lazy and get writing. Go to South America. Adopt a home