Zarina Zabrisky

9/11:

I have mentioned before that I was booked to fly United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, from Newark to San Francisco, with my family.

It crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all 44 people aboard including the four hijackers. The passengers fought the hijackers and prevented the plane from hitting its target.

I changed the tickets the last minute, for the next day. I couldn’t speak or write about it for 15 years, and don’t think often about it. Definitely, not every year.

But this year, with all the calamities and having just flown out of San Francisco on September 9, when the sun forgot to rise and the skies turned orange, with the smoke filling the cabin, I was acutely aware of it. Still, I didn’t find words to process it properly.

Some things are bigger than our thinking capacity and fall into the realm of pure feelings.

It would be a poem but words don’t come.

I guess, these days it is less personal; it is the shadow that is cast over all of us. The darkness that envelops us is not the absence of light, it is the sign that light is just obscured and it will be back.

Also, thinking of people who refused to surrender to the inevitable and fought the fate and evil, regardless of anything. As we are facing the unknown and the unthinkable, it’s a good thought.

And thinking of everyone in the West facing evacuation, wildfires and bad air. Stay safe.

Sent from my iPhone

Sept 13, 2020