abaya

Strangely enough, I had just arrived in Iceland as an exchange student for a year, a week before 9/11. I had barely started getting to know Reykjavik, and had to walk downtown from the university to the Fulbright office (which is staffed by mostly Americans) that afternoon. We are 4 hours ahead of NY time... and the events had happened just an hour or so before I showed up at the office, so I hadn't heard anything yet.

I walked into the Fulbright office with some questions about my application, and the woman stopped me almost immediately and asked me if I had heard about the planes being flown into the World Trade Center. I thought I hadn't heard her right--it struck me as very odd news--and it didn't really sink in until I left the office (no one was working) and walked back down the street, that it was really huge news. I turned on the BBC on my walkman and started listening... and still didn't really believe it, until I got home and saw it on TV, and then saw things in the newspapers the next day.

I went to the US embassy the next day to sign the book of condolences, and saw that the line of Icelanders waiting to sign the book stretched down several blocks. There was a great deal of sympathy for the US at that time--they all felt horrible about it. People were donating blood and money and all the rest. I really can't imagine anyone feeling that way about the US right now, 7 years later. Such a phenomenal shift has happened during the Bush administration...

Anyway, I met up with some American acquaintances that night, but we didn't have much to say. It wasn't until a month or two later, when I bought an issue of TIME or Newsweek, can't remember... and went home to absorb the photo essay they had published about the event. There was a full-page photo of a close-up of people jumping out of windows, in mid-air, going to their deaths. It hit me suddenly then, and I burst into tears. I felt so safe, here in Iceland back then... I knew nothing could possibly happen to me here, the way it had to them--or to many other people around the world who never imagined experiencing such a horrible death. That was a strange year to be away from America.

And here I am again, back in the same place, just walked down the same street this morning after meeting ktsp (my Arab husband, incidentally! Who would have imagined, back then?) for coffee. It feels so familiar, but quite surreal, too. A strange circularity, looping... and it is unbelievable that in these circumstances, a Democrat might lose another election.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran