A week from last Wednesday at the last meeting of the Panera Posse we talked of many things, as we always do, and one subject leading to another, we somehow arrived at the subject of 9/11. Of course, everyone who is old enough remembers where they were and what they were doing on that terrible day, at that terrible moment. But for one of the members of our Panera group who was working at the time for the federal government in Washington D.C. in a high-rise building not far from the Pentagon, the memory is especially salient. She told us about a story that began circulating around her office in the days after 9/11. According to the story, that someone had read about or heard about or had heard from someone who'd read or heard about it, some of the people who jumped from the burning towers, though blinded by the smoke that filled the building, grabbed the hand of whoever was standing next to them and the two jumped together, holding hands. Our friend said that this story had a great effect on herself and her co-workers. They found themselves discussing whose hand they'd have wanted to reach for if it had been their building that had been hit; who, among the people they worked with every day they'd want as a "jump buddy". But the heart of this story was that the people in the World Trade towers who reached blindly for each other's hands didn't know whose hand it was they found; it could have been the hand of any one of their co-workers, their good friend or their worst enemy. And it was this aspect of the story that most affected our friend and her co-workers; our friend said that there was a noticeable shift in the office dynamics as people now imagined the scenario of the hand of any one of their fellow workers being the last hand they ever held. We were all moved by our friend's story. And it got us thinking and talking about if we were ever in such a moment, whose hand would we hope to be holding when we jumped from this life to the next? Or, we wondered, could we not reach for a complete stranger to be our jump buddy? Or what if we started thinking of every person we ever shared space with on this planet as a possible "jump buddy"? Maybe every person is. Everyone have a beautiful weekend. 8)
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If only I'd wanted what I had instead of being set on having what I wanted, If only I'd felt satisfied with keeping the 20-year-old but perfectly good curtains already hanging in our bedroom: If only I'd have chosen some other day, time and moment in the cosmos than last Monday, September 29, 2014 at 11:10 am to hang the new curtains, If only I'd been as mindful and careful as I usually am when stepping down from a chair, If only I'd made the bed first so that the hard edge of the wooden foot board would have been covered and therefore padded a little by the quilt like it is in this photo of when the bed was made: If only whatever combination of physics and clutziness that caused the chair and me to go tumbling down simultaneously had been ever-so-slightly differently configured at that moment in time, If only I'd fallen at a slightly different angle so that my side hit the mattress instead of the edge of the wooden foot board, Then maybe I wouldn't have had to waste the past three days moping around the house nursing a broken rib.* (Sigh). I don't even like the new curtains. * That is to say, the ER physician thought it was probably a fracture though the xray was inconclusive. It could actually be a bruised rib or a soft tissue injury. I guess it's six of one, half-dozen of the other, right? (Though it still feels like twelve of one, a dozen of the other). 8/ …Continued from yesterday: Sunday morning at 7:00 am we checked out of IHSP Chicago... ...and after giving a final glance to the sign posted in the hostel's window: ...we began rolling our suitcases along the now-quiet streets of Bucktown ...to the Damen station to catch the train downtown to pick up our Megabus back to Columbus. We got off at the Clinton stop then walked several blocks through downtown... ...to our Megabus stop in front of Union Station. As we'd arrived 45 minutes early we decided to go to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street from Union Station for some breakfast. The store was crowded this early Sunday morning, but had a cheerful, friendly feel thanks to the gospel music that eminated from the speaker system and the peppy wait staff, a young guy and a lively middle-aged lady who had their own system for rolling out the customers' orders. While the youngster rang up the orders and rustled up the drinks the lady, who stood by the food prep area, called to the next person in line: "Whatchu want, Baby?" As she filled the orders she'd occasionally call back for a clarification: "What, you don't want no bacon wit dat egg croissant?" "Baby, you want you some cream cheese wit dat bagel?" After I placed our order she called back to me, "Now, Sugar, I ain't got but one plain bagel left. You getchu somethin' else, all right?" So Tom ended up getting the last of the plain bagels with his sausage and cheese bagel, while I settled for an onion bagel and a jelly doughnut with an iced tea, with which I was ultimately quite satisfied. Though all the seats in the Dunkin' Donuts were taken, one young man did offer me his. But I thankfully declined and Tom and I opted to stand and enjoy the window scene of the city's comings goings. As we ate and drank together some of our fellow customers struck up conversations with each other or with the friendly food-prep lady, who seemed to have perfected the art of chatting whilst working. Some of the customers hummed or sang along to the gospel music. I didn't know any of the lovely, inspiring tunes that were playing and so I couldn't sing along, though I would have liked to. It felt like Sunday morning. As we left I thanked our two food providers for the food and for the music. I told the food-prep lady that I felt like I was in church. "Sugar, you is," she replied. The view from the window of the Dunkin' Donuts across the street from Union Station, Chicago.
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"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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March 2024
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
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