Kochi

Yesterday, I spent the day with Gillian (from London) and Alif (from Hamburg), mostly in Jew Town, the historic neighborhood in Fort Cochin. (I didn't invent the name!) As we walked around an old church here, Alif pointed that it was September 11th. "I can't believe how quickly time has flown." We counted how many years had gone by so fast--6 years!--since the WTC attacks. Alif was in Germany at the time, and someone mistakenly told her that the attacks were taking place in London. Alif had never been to London or NY, so it was as plausible as anything else. She had some friends and cousins in London, and she watched with a fear and disbelief similar to Jenny's and my watching it at work on MSNBC, thinking of everyone we knew back home.

Funny how, as time elapses, the more emotional I become about 9/11. I choked up a little as I explained that it was the thought of everything that's happened since, and as a result, that renders that date so tragic and infuriating. The world seemed to contract in common empathy for New Yorkers, but then Afghanistan and Iraq happened...So frustrating that so much unity could have been so singlemindedly torn apart in a blind fit of "patriotic" idiocy by our government. It's so depressing.