Dudleyspinner Tie Dye Wool Everyone Else Wants To Remember, I Just Want to Forget

Fourteen years ago today 9-11-2001 I was camping alone at Winfield, KS the annual Walnut Valley Bluegrass festival. The rest of my friends went back home after setting up camp during Land Rush.

 I was laying in bed in the camper, the windows open and was half asleep.

I kept hearing a man on the TV keep talking, in a quite soothing voice. In my mind, it was Garrison Keilor, talking about Lake Wobegone. I got up and trekked to the nearest facilities, walking to the Port o Pot past the TV and the soothing voice. On my return, the TV screen I saw the rerun of the First Plane hitting the Tower. My fist thought was, WE ARE AT WAR.

I was alone, there were thousands of people around me, but no one I knew. I did not try to call home, since that was discouraged by the media. I felt very isolated,small and vulnerable, even though I was in no danger. I did not know anyone in New York, or DC at that time. It was several days until I contacted my husband and family. During that time, I saw that footage many times, it is still burned into my retinas, I close my eyes and I can see it just as clearly as that first awful time.

Am I unAmerican for wanting to forget? Perhaps I am. That realization as soon as I saw the attack was that this is the beginning of war. Not fought on American soil, of course, we like to keep confrontation far away from our homeland. Two wars started on the premise that we need to kill our enemies, that attacked us  on that day, those that died deserve revenge. The wholesale lies that were fed us by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld gang to invade Iraq, and then Afghanistan. 14 years of war. I want to forget that day, the day I knew this would be the outcome.

I have not been back to Winfield for many years now. Being there brings back that day for me. The feeling of isolation, loss and suffering, I want to forget.