On September 11, 2001, I took a day trip to a Spanish beach. As morning yawned into the afternoon, I was eager for some sense of familiarity and sought an Internet cafe to check my email. My rowing coach had sent a note to the team saying that, despite the morning's events, they'd still have practice. That it was important to carry on and be together. What events? What had happened? I anxiously began to troll for information and learned of the terrorists attacks. I left the computer and wandered bewildered in the foreign land, hoping to come upon a pub broadcasting English-language TV. I called home using a pay phone and calling card. Talking to Mom and Dad was both comforting and terribly isolating. I hung up and cried. I'm guessing now that they did the same.
As I made my way back to the hostel, I remember feeling that, despite everything, there must be some levity, some laughter, some clinging to joy and hope going on around me. But because I didn't understand the language, couldn't decipher intonation or interpret the natives' body language, it was lost on me. When I got to the hostel as evening was closing in, there was an older lady, wrapped in a shawl sitting behind a single desk waiting to sign visitors in. I didn't know her language and she didn't know mine. But it must have been evident I was American. With sadness in her eyes, using a stapler as an airplane and a pen as a building, she did a brief reenactment of the morning's terrible events. She shook her head and put a grieving hand to her heart. And I did the same.
