Red Sky Morning

On September 11, 2001, I spent the day at work. Our Exec told us that poor people's problems did not take a day off, and neither would we evacuate from Downtown, like everyone else had. I didn't mind, but my Mother was home alone, by herself and afraid.

After about 11 a.m., the phones stopped ringing, as the news spread and America watched her TV's. I went to an AA meeting that night, and raised the flag on our flagpole, at the Old House. At 3 a.m., I was woken by a phone call from an Arab country; a friend stationed overseas called to reassure me she was well. I had gotten off an internet message to her during the day, and called her husband.

So the wind is lonely to me, today, and the stars hang with subtlety. Rains wet the fields, and it is hard to tell where the dew falls...

Dawn comes, it lights a pool in NYC, and strikes a field in Pennsylvania, and the sides of the Pentagon.

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 Dawn comes, and lights the maple tree out back. Will it be a red sky, or pale blue and grey? 

We have decided to continue group therapy after our therapist became unavailable. The members of the group want to continue to grow through this tough time. I am so proud.

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Dawn comes, and the cat statues on my dresser stare back at me placidly, or sleep in their poses. The woman on horseback looks across the bottle of Chanel No. 5. The fragrance of that perfume is filled with memories of my childhood and my Mother. It's a good scent for the day. My Mother wore Chanel No. 5 until my Father died. After his passage, she wore the perfume of memories and of stored, hidden things, Lavender.

I would grow it and sprinkle it in her dresser drawers, and place it in glass dishes by her bedside. We gave it away as gifts, and keepsakes. She would scent greeting cards with a sprig or two, and I always dried bunches of it from the harvest, for pleasure. I still keep a heart shaped glass bottle of it on my side table, to remember her by.

The cats come in with wet feet. It's a red sky morning.