Author's Note: I'm not sure what the story will be. I ended my first independent writing time with the first two lines and perhaps an idea that I would be writing about the things I lost in the fire, or maybe things I gained from the fire. After the daily conversation about the prompt with teachers talking about events like 9/11 and Columbine, it seems to be the beginning of a connection with some national/international shared traumas and how that linked to my own life and also shifted at that moment how I choose to live life. I am letting this just reveal itself so any feedback is welcome as I try to see what sticks.
6/5/24
On the night Lahaina burned, August 8, 2023, Tuesday,
I dreamt about my great grandfather's church burning
as if I was somehow in the graveyard looking toward Lahainaluna Road
only to wake up to the photo
of the Waiola Church social hall burning.
Not a dream,
more like a portal that opened up, or my spirit traveling to say goodbye one last time.
There are traumas like this that we bear witness to over the television, radio, computer--
traumas that intrude upon our daily nothing days until our lives pause mid step,
the road diverges until some shared memory of
"where were you when. . ." becomes a personal shift in our identity.
January 28, 1986, Tuesday
I am a freshman at my plan C university because I am stupidly following a boy
who would not have done the same for me.
I go to his dorm after organic chemistry
and never make it up to his room because in the common area
five people are huddled near the television to watch the Challenger blast off into space.
I am there to watch Kealakekua Hawai'i astronaut Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American in space.
73 seconds later, the crew compartment explodes
46,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean
and in the silence of the room,
I watch slow motion reruns of the bomb-like explosion, then the trails of smoke and contrails
sailing erratic in the wind.
I leave a note on the boy's door from one of his favorite authors, Louis L'amour: "A ship does not sail with yesterday's wind," and walk away.
September 11, 2001, Tuesday
In Hawai'i, I am up at 3 am because boy 3, who sleeps in our bed,
has wedged himself sideways with his head pushing against my ribs and his feet pushing into my husband's neck.
It is both too early to get up and too late to sleep, so I turn the television on.
The image opens up with what I think is a fire in New York City. In the early morning darkness, my senses do not rise at the same time, so I watch images, live and repeated until the words of the broadcasters
start to mesh with the images playing out in front of me:
2:46 a.m. HST - Flight 11 crashes into floors 93 through 99 of the North Tower. At this point no one is sure how this accident happened. It is a beautiful September morning in New York.
The sky around the grey plumes is a cerulean blue
3:03 a.m. HST - After a flight attendant sends out a brief alert to air traffic control that a hijacking on Flight 175 is underway at 3:00 a.m. HST, Flight 175 crashes into floors 77 through 85 of the South Tower.
3:05 a.m. HST - President Bush is reading a book at Emma E. Booker Elementary. Andrew Card, White House Chief of staff, whispers something in his ear. The President nods, but does not say yet. When he does, he says "terrorism against our country will not stand."
I carry my still sleeping three year old to the other room with his brothers. I lay him down with boy 2, who is 8 and wake up boy 1, 13 and a transfer freshman to the high school I teach at.
The three of us, including my husband, continue to watch the events unfold as we talk about our own fears, our own questions, our own plan as a family to stay close.
We know, without knowing. The beginning is near.
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