09/11/2026
I remember that day. I remember driving down the 405 on my way to work, listening to The Marshall Mathers LP. I remember the sun. Exactly how the light looked that day. When I got to the nursery my boss told me a plane had crashed into a building in NYC. I didn’t think much of it, imagined a small accident. I sat at my desk, my voicemail light flashing. I had 3 messages. One from my father asking me if I was safe. One from Matt Lane wondering if I was on an east coast flight to LA and one from a young man from Thailand who I’d exchanged numbers with in Phuket. He wanted to know what was going on with my country. I didn’t know. I was in California and we were 3 hours behind. I checked the internet for news. It was no small accident. I called my brother. Woke him up. Asked him if he knew what was going on in the world. I told him to turn on the TV. We sat on the phone in silence and watched the North Tower collapse. I was there 2 days prior with Mama having drinks and chatting up the bartender at The Greatest Bar on Earth. I asked him if he had a box of matches. He gave me three. Mama framed those matchboxes and gave them to me as a gift on the one year anniversary of 9/11. After things became a bit more clear our CEO gathered us all together and told us we could go home and be with our families. But our team kept working. I suppose work is how our we dealt with things such as this. I’m sure we all remember that day. Where we were. What the light looked like. Who we called. Who called us and how that day changed the fabric of our American lives. It’s nice to remember.
This is a climbing rose called Heavenly Ascent photographed this morning at the nursery in honor of the heroes, in memory of the fallen, and for those still mourning . . And the matches that bartender gave me 25 years ago. God bless you all, and God Bless America.
