Ten years later

---

September and October are really the best months in the Northeast. June is supposed to have “perfect days,” and maybe it does once in a while, but the really lovely weather comes right now.

Ten years ago today, it was a perfectly crystalline day in Providence. Partner and I were watching the Today Show that morning before work, and I remember a video shot over Manhattan, and the weather was just as beautiful there. I think the lead news story that morning was something about Michael Jordan, by the way.

Around nine that morning, I was sitting in my office when I could hear a coworker outside in the hallway: It was awful, was it an accident, how could such a thing happen -

Well, something had happened. I logged onto Yahoo and saw the first story – only a line or two at that point.

My memory of the rest of that day is a garble. The news went on and on, and the story kept changing. First there were four planes, then six, then five. First it was a tragic accident, and then (I don't remember when) the Al-Qaeda element came into it, and then there were images of the towers crumbling.

So many images. So many video cameras and cell phones. I can't help but wonder how different our perception of Pearl Harbor, or of the London Blitz, would be if there had been cameras everywhere, photographing everything.

A few years ago, Partner and I visited Ground Zero. A friend had told me that the best access was through the PATH terminal that still lay under the footprint of the Towers. We went down to the station, and looked up through the grillwork, and it was one of the most ominously sad things I've ever seen. The footprint of the Towers was vast, and completely empty, cleaned out by years of careful excavation. The edges were scarred, with long rusty streaks along the sides.

We didn't take any pictures.

It didn't seem appropriate.

 

---

 

And suddenly it's autumn

---

Partner is sick and tired of hearing me declare that, in Rhode Island, on August 15 (or thereabouts), we change to autumn.

 

 

Except that it's always true.

 

 

I mean: I see his point.  Here it is almost two weeks later, and we're sitting here sweltering with the air conditioners on, waiting for a hurricane to pass over in the next 48 hours.

 

 

But the August 15 thing never fails. Never. There's a slight drop in the temperature and humidity, and a few drops of dew on the grass in the morning. And I hear the crickets, at morning and dusk. And the light is altogether different, for god's sake! Duskier. More autumnal.

 

 

It's a month after the solstice, so of course there's bound to be a change. The evenings are definitely darker. No more twilight until nine o'clock; it's dark, or almost, by eight o'clock now.

 

 

None too soon for me, kiddos. I hate the humid unsettled New England summer, all stormclouds and warm fronts. I long for the cool calm sunny weather of September and (better yet) October, which are easily New England's best months.

 

 

But so many New Englanders are summer-worshippers! They hate the thunderstorms and humidity as much as I do, but they love summer. Just because.

 

 

Well, I don't. It's a pain. I hate sweating through my shirt. I hate looking out the window and seeing a bruise-colored sky. Or brassy angry one-hundred-degree sunshine. Or waiting for another bloody Atlantic hurricane to maybe-or-maybe-not come ashore.

 

 

I long for the beautiful colorful New England autumn, and the calm passage into winter.

 

 

New England winter itself is a bitch.

 

 

But we can talk about that a few months from now, after I've fractured my spine by slipping on an icy sidewalk.

 

---