I'm doing little, everyday things, at my own pace, taking out the trash and washing dishes, and I'm playing Scrabble on the floor and pool and cards and watching channels that aren't news-related, and remembering how to laugh. On my desk, a candle smells like apple and cinammon and the flame dances and dances, casting light shadows on the wall. The storm moved north this afternoon with an absurd suddenness, from pounding rain to painfully bright sun in mere seconds while dark sweeping sheets of water still fell on the other side of the building, moving off into the distance, leaving everything sparkling and soggy. Coming back, the last vestiges of clouds had been blown away, and there were stars showing faintly in the sky and I opened my arms as wide as I could in the darkness and the remaining storm wind, because if air can still move so real over my skin like that, maybe I can remember how to be real, too. I don't know how to live in a world which continues to exist with a semblance of normalcy after hearing my parents, my roommates, the newscasters say it was changing forever.
Nothing makes sense anymore.
I keep slipping and telling people I was in New York two days ago, even though it's really four now, because all this seems to be one long day, in which I sleep for brief moments at a time and wake again into a world where it is forever, endlessly September 11. And I feel like I have no right to feel this way, because I am one of the lucky. I knew, of course, that we were not impenetrable and we were not perfect, but everything I read still sounds like it's part of a movie script, and the tv is full of special effects and the absurdity of it all makes it harder to process. And I can't snap out of it, because this is everything, there is no place to which I can go where this doesn't exist. I keep forgetting all the little things, like changing my socks and eating, and I am hugging people a lot and talking to others online as much as I can and telling everyone I love them.