bear

Five years ago, just before 9 am, I puttered off to the bath; it was a hot September Tuesday morning and I didn't have to be at work until 10. I'd been chatting with theducks and kudzita and several others since the sun had woken me earlier, golden dawnlight through my window warming the walls and drawing me out of bed hours before I had to be at work.

( that day, content warning for everything 9/11 )

I went back to work later that week; I joined a choir again a few weeks later. I sang at various memorials; at one of them, I got a phone number on a napkin from a boy for the first time ever. If anything, I travelled more that winter, spending time with those I loved in faraway places. I went down to New Haven, twice. I went home for Christmas, then up to Portland and Seattle to visit West Coast friends, and rang in the new year in Vancouver chez pukajen; on the way home, we stopped at a steakhouse, and thanks to prime_meridian and ascian3 and sleipnir, I finally understood what delicious steak could be. I started a long-distance relationship with a guy in DC thanks to geebee_x, and flew into National multiple times, becoming quite familiar with the DC flight restrictions; he actually made the first visit, on a chilly January winter weekend; returned for Valentine's Day a few weeks later; continued to come see me. All of us seeking connection with those we loved; all of us freshly reminded how fragile it all was. And at the end of that winter, I visited danialindenberg in New York (with Ingrid and Angie and Marvin), and we met up with Michelle and Peter and went down to Ground Zero to pay our respects, and for the first time, I stood at the base of the Towers-That-Were, and gazed up into the sky, following the shafts of blue light as they trailed high into the clouds, imagining what could have been.