Reading the date, I saw in my memory that whole horrific morning and felt again the terror and threat that overwhelmed me on that blue sky day.
That is what I remember . . . that blue sky. Intensely blue. Purely blue. No clouds or contrail of exhaust. Just blue. Piercing, penetrating blue.
When we visited the Ground Zero Memorial several years ago, I stopped before this wall, unable to pass by. A collage of nearly 3000 watercolor squares in an attempt to capture that color. Piercing, penetrating shades of blue. Like that morning on 9/11. No clouds or contrails of exhaust. Just blue.
And I breathed the blue into my body, feeling the peaceful beauty of pure color fill me. Having walked through the misshapen pieces of tragedy — steel beams twisted and torqued by impact and fire, a searing picture of someone standing in the hole left in the side of the building and about to jump, the dented and damaged stairs from one of the towers — the serenity of the blue sky that day was a gift.
Was that what they saw in their last moments in this life? Foolishly perhaps, I would like to believe that was a part of their awareness. Some brief moment of blue sky . . .
Pilgrimages and Paths 