Coming up to the 10 years since September 11, 2001 all I hear when I turn on the radio is, "where were you on the day?". People are saying this is our generation's next question after "where were you when JFK was shot?" Both questions have something to do with a huge tragedy that has forever changed our country, a change that had no relevance to me until days after it had even happened- I didn't know.
I feel maybe its just a part of a release for me to share what happened to me on this day, because in fact I had absolutely no idea that this day had any significance to so many people as I lived and breathed and felt life in a remote canyon in central/eastern Arizona with 11 of my peers. I was on a 21 day backpacking trip that was my orientation to Prescott College. There were about 100 other first- year students in similar situations- backpacking in remote wilderness areas around the state of Arizona. There was one other group of students and 2 instructors who were alumni or seniors, who took the opposite direction of our route- they started where we ended, we started where they ended, and we met halfway in between in the tiny backwoods town of Young for a resupply. On this day, September 11, I can remember a particularly slow hike through narrow sections of the canyon, with large boulders interrupting small sections of mucky water (it hadn't rained once that year, water was quite low). We set up camp on a flat section in a wider part of the canyon that was comfortable enough for a small group of hikers. That evening we had a class on the stars, as presented by one of my classmates. He pointed out some major constellations and their orientation to where we were. I went to sleep under the giant milky way, cicadas singing and a breeze russling the willow branches along the banks of the creek. The canyon was still, the trees stood strong, and my mind was at peace with the world.
One thing that I have never forgotten about that time in my life is the dream I had that night. I remember it clearly, having woken disturbed and thought about it for hours after waking the next morning, as I packed my bag and stretched before hiking. In my dream I was flying in an airplane, through a city, the plane turning its wings and dodging buildings as we flew. Please keep in mind I had no idea what had happened across the country, in the "civilized" world earlier that day.
It wasn't until 2 days later (September 13) that we were told what had unfolded in New York and D.C. earlier that week. We were set up on our solos, which were supposed to be 3 days of staying in one place, alone, with our instructors checking up on us to bring us water twice a day. My goal at this time was to commune with mind, body, and soul of myself and the earth. I had chosen to fast during this time, but not all of the group had decided to do this. My instructors had given me a site that was on the side of the canyon, overlooking the confluence of two creeks and I had views of the vast monsoon storms that formed in the distance, an Alligator Juniper next to me, and a beautiful agave that had not yet bloomed. I could hear the creek in the distance, and hear nothing but the birds singing, my own breath, and the cone-nose beetles that tried so hard to extract my blood. I could not see any of the other members of my group, but knew that they were not too far away. We were taken to our solo sites in the morning. Sometime in the late afternoon I heard voices coming up the canyon. It seemed quite odd, as we were truly in the middle of the wilderness, not in access to even the avid day hiker, and certainly not on a highly trafficked route for backpackers for mid-September. I listened for a while and quickly recognized the voice of our course director, Bruce, and his friend Jared, who we had just seen several days previous at our resupply. I thought it was quite odd they would be hiking to our solo location. (The instructors and route director had the locations and dates all mapped out so they knew where we are at all times in case of emergency or evac- usually due to injury or illness, and it seemed quite odd to see them.)
About 2 hours later my instructor, Anna, came to my site and told me to pack up as there was some important news that we all needed to hear. I asked her what it was, she had no idea but needed us all the come off our solo and join the group at our central campsite. The only thing that could come to my mind was that someone shot the president, but why would that be so important as to come tell us in the middle of our orientation? This meant that if they were telling us, then every single person on orientation was being told. This must be something big....
Well, the news was big. Bruce had brought a newspaper to show us pictures. I could hardly look at it. The images were so disturbing, so unbelievable. It seemed like a movie, some story that I had seen played out on a screen before, like ConAir or something. Bruce had called each one of our families before coming to tell us the news, and had asked them if they needed or wanted us to come back to the "civilized" world. No one had been summoned back, but there was one student who had a family friend who had been on the subway under the trade center at the time of impact- he hiked out to use a phone the next day, and came back to join the group. That night we decided to sit in a sweat lodge one of our instructors had made out of sleeping bags and tarps and willow branches. He suggested we do several rounds of prayer and silence to do something with the energy of the news we had just received. I had never been in a sweat lodge before, and this was quite an intense way to begin! It was such a cleansing experience, we burned the paper we had been given, prayed for peace, sweat the toxic energy out of our bodies, and washed it all off in the creek afterwards, howling at the moon.
One of the first realizations I had after being told the news of a few days previous "Oh, that is why it has been so extremely tranquil out here- there have been no planes flying over us". The air traffic had ceased for a few days and we were traveling in a canyon directly in line under the flight path to the Phoenix airport for all planes traveling from east to west. I hadn't directly made that connection until that moment.
The group of people I was with conceeded to stay in the back-country for the remainder of our time scheduled, but we came to find out that over half of the groups out had elected to leave and return to town. I am very glad we stayed, it was a very crucial time for us to process what we had heard and what it meant to us.
My first experience back to the "civilized" world was entering a world that I had never known before. Suddenly everyone was wearing "united we stand" shirts EVERYWHERE. We stopped at a grocery store in Show Low (if you've ever been here you know it is kinda backwards). People were very somber, and I felt I had definitely missed something big. Not only had we not been aware of what happened WHEN it happened, but the energy around it had been created that I had been insulated from for over a week afterwards. I bought a magazine at the grocery store and I still have it, saved somewhere in my stuff. I have not ever looked at it, but bought it in case some day I might want to go back and look. I didn't see video footage from the day until a year later, on the one year anniversary, when my friend and I decided to go into a bar in town to see what they had on the television, and that was my first glimpse of the planes hitting the towers. It was horrifying, and it wasn't until that moment that I really started to understand what everyone had been going through for the past year. And here we are 10 years later. I am hearing more stories and different perspectives then ever before. There is something about living so far away, in Arizona, when it happened, that makes people's reactions and feelings actually much stronger. There were many hate crimes committed in Phoenix to innocent taxi drivers, convenience store owners, with thousands of ignorant "patriots" waving their flags around and painting "I'm gonna git you Bin Laden" alongside the interstate. Coming back east was quite a shock to see that people are much more quiet about the effects of this day. There is still "noise" but on a much different scale....
So that is what I was doing September 11, 2001. How about you?
