Dartblog

I don’t recall whether we were on a flight from Logan three or four days after 9/11, but we flew on the first evening that commercial flights resumed. It was time to get back home to Paris. The four of us drove down to Logan: Mom and Dad a little quiet; the kids full of energy as usual. The airport was empty, and for some reason most of the lights were off. The shops were dark, and the ambient lighting was at half-strength. The place felt as if people were learning to do their jobs for the first time.

Most of all, we sensed uncertainty. Would there be more attacks? The events that had occurred seemed without precedent; did the hijackings presage yet other strange, dangerous assaults? And then there was the example of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Passengers were now the frontline, we told ourselves. What would each of us do if something occurred on our flight? I don’t think that I have ever given my fellow passengers a more thorough up and down than on that day.

The flight itself took place without incident.

On the other end, we did experience something unexpected. One by one in their turn, the six other residents in our small apartment building came by to express their condolences and wish us well. Most brought small gifts. One woman, who had never been very warm in the past, brought us a cake for which her native region was known. With our neighbors, we shared the feeling of being under threat in a quite immediate way.

The world was no longer the same, and we thought of 9/11 throughout that period — as we still do today each time we go through arduous security and board an airplane to a perhaps uncertain destination.