Remembrance

Faster, faster! Until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death.
~ Hunter S. Thompson

There are a handful of world events that stick in my mind; not only do I remember them, but I remember the circumstances under which I heard about them. I was in the fifth grade when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The principal came over the public address system and made an announcement. I was standing in the back of the classroom in front of a bookshelf, looking at the books preparatory to picking one out to read. I can still feel myself standing there, my back to the loudspeaker, standing stock still and listening.

Five years later, I was fifteen and at a church group retreat when word came that Kennedy's brother, Robert, had been killed. I watched the blood drain from the face of the counselor, an idealistic young man who admired Bobby Kennedy. A few minutes before, the counselor had been teasing me (or making fun of me, I realized much later), by making "air quotes" when he referred to my "boyfriend," the boy that I was there with. I didn't know what the gesture meant, and just laughed when he made the remark.

When Challenger exploded on take-off, I was working at a financial company as the assistant to the president. Someone had the radio on and we heard the news, and my first thought was for my brother, who worked for an aerospace company at the time, one that was involved in the Space Program. He often attended launches in Florida. I listened until I heard that there were no casualties on the ground, then called my parents to tell them there had been an accident, but my brother--if he had been there--hadn't been involved.

September 11, 2001, wasn't that long ago, of course, and I remember where I was--walking into work at the new web company, putting down my bag, when someone who had a news site up said that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center. It sounded like an accident at first, then escalated into terror.

This morning Bob was getting ready to go pick up his parents to take them to the airport when he turned on the television and we saw the first report that NASA had lost contact with Columbia. We watched in disbelief as the reports came in, and while no one had yet made any official pronouncement, it was fairly obvious what had happened.

I watched the news channels for several hours, then went out to run some errands. I listened to NPR for most of the day, and would stop in between errands and sit in the car and listen to the radio. I brought my knitting and half-finished a scarf. I kept thinking as I was knitting that every time I wore it, I would remember the day I knitted it.

Space travel is fascinating to me. I think it's worth every dollar spent. Whether it's worth human life or not I suppose is the question, but the astronauts do go into it knowing the risks. Space travel is dangerous. We don't know yet how to do it without the danger, or whether there will ever be a way, but even though it's dangerous, we still do it. We don't stop driving cars because there are accidents, and we don't stop flying, we just figure the odds are better that we'll survive than that we won't, and we go out into the world every day.

The astronauts do more than go out into the world, they go out into space. The great unknown. They risk their lives for exploration and knowledge and adventure.

I had never heard that quote above until yesterday, when our company newsletter went out, and that was the quote that Gard chose to put in it. It seems terribly appropriate for today.

Last night I was dreaming, and dreamt that I heard an alarm go off, but just one little beep. I asked Bob, "What was that?" and he said, "It's my alarm." I said, "But it's the middle of the night, it's not time to get up yet," and then I heard the beep again.

This time I woke up, and it wasn't the alarm, it was Pyewacket. She was standing on top of Bob's dresser making her scratchly little "Mao," the one that says, "I've jumped and I can't get down." I got out of bed and hauled her off the dresser and dumped her back into bed. My guess is that she wanted some attention (from Bob, more than likely), but when it didn't work out, was afraid to jump down.

I think it's interesting how our minds incorporate real world events into our dreams, or mine, anyway. I'm always reading in mystery stories that someone hears an alarm going off in their sleep, or hears someone screaming, and finally wakes up to find the telephone ringing.

My most common one is to dream that I have to go to the bathroom and can't find one, or I find one and the door won't lock, or there isn't a door at all, and I'm rushing frantically around trying to find another one, and then I wake up and have to go to the bathroom.