My son must have awakened early that day. He knocked on the door and asked me, "Mom, did somebody attack the World Trade Center?" Rousing from half-sleep, I said, "That was years ago." After a few seconds of silence he quitely said, "Mom, turn on the tv."

I reached over into the other half of the bed, discovering that my husband had gone into the shower already. With the school year just begun, the drive to Sausalito was back to its ridiculous 75 minutes each morning, and he needed to get a much earlier start to his long day.

I reached over to the dresser near his side of the bed, found the remote, and turned on the little tv perched on the dresser at the foot of the bed. One of the towers was on fire. As I watched in horror, that image we all saw hundreds of times over the next weeks and months came onto the screen: bright silver metal against blue sky, then red flames and black smoke. The newscasters were visibly shaken. I was riveted and terrified at the same time.

I wasn't sure what to do. I called out my husband's name, but he couldn't hear me. I went into the bathroom, pulled open the shower curtain and just blurted it out. "The country is under attack. Somebody is attacking us."

I'm pretty sure he thought I'd had a bad dream, because he said "Let me get out of here and dry off and you can tell me about it."

"I don't know what to do." I answered. "Should I send the kids to school?" Then I pulled the shower curtain closed again and went to wake up my daughter--after turning off all the televisions. She was ten years old.

A few weeks later, during reading week, I went into the city for a day of trying to distract myself. Bags carried by ferry passangers were now inspected. While walking down Market Street on a gorgeous autumn day, I heard an airplane above me, and looked up to carefully watch its path, just in case they had Done It Again.

Tanks and Marines carrying M16s became part of the familiar landscape at each end of the Very Famous Orange Bridge. I remember wondering what good an M16 would be against a bomb or an airplane. I was glad that we didn't have to cross that bridge very often.

I didn't know anyone killed by the attacks. My closest story is that one of my seminary colleagues was on a plane home from Florida to San Francisco when the attacks happened. They made an emergency landing in Atlanta, where she and a plane full of strangers shared hotel rooms and borrowed contact solution and toothpaste from each other until the skies opened back up again.

I didn't even know anyone...and still this event triggered more panic attacks in me than any other event, until I was told the terrible news of the murder of my friend one month ago today.