Thinking this morning about  Sarah Shourd.

Wondering where she is, if the people she was traveling with are together or separated. Can they communicate with each other? Do they know what the date is? Have they been able to keep track of time?

Remembering how after 9/11 there were people who blamed the victims. That it was the American or ‘Western’ wealth, power, privilege, and foreign policy that led to the attacks.

Remembering how during the news-flood there was one particular line I couldn’t understand. “All air traffic in the entire country has been suspended except for select military aircraft evacuating memebers of the Bin Laden family.”

Remembering how some sound engineer or editor had synched up this sound effect (an orchestral swell) to the video of the 2nd plane hitting the tower.

Remembering a detail in a story by Mark Doty–that at street level around the towers (just before collapse) there was a ‘mist’ of blood in the air.

Remembering how the afterschool program I was working at that day was canceled.

Remembering how I went out skateboarding through the neighborhood.

Remembering how you on the news you could see the outline where the wing cut through the building.

Remembering my friend Shawn who was surfing Jersey Shores that day and said you could see the smoke from out in the water.

Remembering how I thought of my friend JJ that day and learned later that he was fine.

Remembering tuning in to Letterman a few days afterward. Remembering how Letterman said it ‘didn’t make any Goddamn sense.”

Remembering seeing George Bush with the Megaphone and the worker who screamed God Bless America.

Remembering my Dad telling me once the Iraq War began, “this will all be over in a few days.”

Remembering how I was in Buenos Aires watching CNN  just before the Iraq War began and how Donald Rumsfield and Colin Powell were trying to explain why we needed to go to war.

Remembering how I changed the channel and it was live coverage of Carnaval in Rio, samba beats and painted bodies.

Remembering how I thought ‘this is pretty much it–on one channel you have angry-looking people in suits and on the other you have people dancing.’

Thinking now ‘how many people get to look into both channels?’

Thinking this morning about Sarah Shourd.