Five years ago, James and I had just arrived in Positano, Italy after bombing down the Amalfi Coast in the custody of a bipolar Italian cabbie named Guiseppe. We'd opened a bottle of champagne and planned to sit on our balcony and stare at the ocean before walking down to dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach. But first, James wanted to see if he could find some football highlights on TV. I'll always remember those moments -- the cab ride and champagne on the balcony -- as the final ones in the "old world" -- before we saw the CNN "breaking news" headline and picture of the burning twin towers. From then on, we became frantic. We couldn't get a phone line back home. We didn't know if there would be more attacks or if any of our friends had flown out of Boston on business that morning. We spent the rest of the vacation with people from New York, Idaho, and Connecticut in an Internet cafe that broadcast CNN on a giant screen TV. We all know how the story ends and all of the details in between but part of me still can't believe it actually happened. Perhaps because I was lucky enough not to lose anyone close to me that day. In the weeks and months following 9/11, it's all you could think about. But now five years later, the collective emotion has subsided and it's business as usual...albeit business as usual while constantly looking over your shoulder. So today, I'm going to watch it all...the footage, the documentaries (not the fictionalized ones..does 9/11 really need to be "dramatized?"). I want to see the faces and hear the voices again and really remember, and be solemn and be sad.
