REFLECTIONS: 9/11/01 AND BEYOND T Minus One

It was the Age of Aquarius, the year after the long-awaited millennial year. Neither the Second Coming nor Y2K had happened. Neither troubled me; I counted myself to be a good person and with our bank account starting to rise, now that we were both working at jobs commensurate with our abilities, I was feeling that this thousand years was certainly going to be better than the last one.

It was Monday, and I was missing New York; regretting our decision to move upstate to a bucolic little town that lacked a subway and yellow taxis and Sabrett's vendors with their green umbrellas. I longed for the noise and the lights that glittered in the skyscraper windows, towering overhead like giant protectors.

Our champagne Camry crawled through streets as clogged as a fat man's arteries. Hawkers, carters, daydreamers strolled the avenues, stepping into the paths of vehicles ten times their weight with the twin assurances that no driver in his right mind would really hit them, and if one actually did, they would litigate.

Maybe we should have taken the subway, my father-in-law said to his bride of fifty-seven years. 'Mother' was a theater buff, and every September they came to Manhattan to 'do' Broadway. She was quite the snob, too; if 'everybody' was going to see it, she would opt for something else. 'Pop' went gamely along; this was her reward, he said, for putting up with late-night calls from his students and having them over for seminars and luncheon at the house that she had to mastermind.

Surely, she said, You don't expect me to take the subway! She made the most of her five-foot-two height, drawing herself up to at least twice that.

We drove them back to their hotel off Central Park and took the car. See you next Sunday, we called as we pulled away.

T Plus Twenty Minutes

I started the group late, because just about everybody was chatting and I was tired. I'd had dreams the night before, dreams about airplanes, and I'd tossed all night. We drove Mother and Pop's car to work, because it was so much nicer than our last century's model. I dreamed six planes flew overhead; they'd all been hijacked, and when you looked up in the sky you could see them passing, I told my husband. Usually he had an explanation for my nocturnal visions, but not today. He was gripping the wheel, anxious to get the Camry into the garage without scraping it and having to answer to his father.

'Skids', our most delusional patient came in.

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