A Major, Major Story

I'd been in that building before, walking in, limping in, floating in and often without any recollection of how I ended up there. But I haven't really been there in over three years. I only go there when I'm asleep.

A bit of unfinished business in the back of my mind sends a message to another part of my brain that I must return. But I'm asleep. So another part of my psyche panics and puts together a scenario so something is ready for me when I arrive at that place again.

Five years ago I wondered if I was still asleep but, except for one detail, things seemed fairly normal. My window was down a little and the radio tuned to an FM station that didn't broadcast much of anything but music. So it seemed strange that I was hearing people talking. And their words weren't prepared like in a chatty commercial. I turned up the volume.

It was the words "..there's a major, major news story coming out of New York City this morning involving an aircraft that has crashed into the world trade center.." I switched the radio over to AM news, curious about why they were calling it a "major" story. And that's when the music and the cold air on my cheeks left off waking me up ended and unimaginable words entering my sleeping mind took over.

What started in New York City that morning by the light of day replays by night on location in the office building on Powell Street in San Francisco where I worked.

The idea of writing about my dreams here, in this blog, came to me after my last bad dream. You can't really kill your enemy and be sure it's dead unless you face it and see its severed head.
Although the end of my career at United Airlines was probably already in the cards, the closing of our office and furlough of everyone there is indelibly linked to the events of 9/11. We lost planes and passengers that day in the most terrible way imaginable. Any time a passenger is hurt or killed or a plane crashes, the entire aviation industry "family" grieves as if it was their own customer or crewmember or airplane. It's the hideous opposite of what you work for every day.

The first time it happened to me, as an official member of the airline industry family, was just after I was hired by United. A former PSA employee pulled out a gun and shot people aboard a flight from LA to SFO causing the plane to crash and kill everyone on board who survived his rampage. The newsflash came across the TV while I was in the break room.

First I was sickened and then angry. And I was afraid something like that might happen at United. Within hours I asked the first management-type person who came by what we would do if something like that happened at UA.

So I guess the real nightmares started a long time ago, certainly a long time before 2001. My innocence ended when that PSA flight went down. And that overwhelming sadness happened many times between 1987 and 2001.

But 9/11 was all I could stand. It put me over the edge. It was over. I'd had enough. From that day on it was like the world had ended and I'd been left behind to suffer with the sinners.

For the first week most of us were drawing emergency power from an unknown resource somewhere deep inside that kept us functioning even though the world was in chaos. We reported for duty, put on the headsets and did our jobs or what seemed like out job should be. We talked, typed, reassured, listened. Dear God in Heaven above, how we listened! People cried, babbled, pleaded and screamed at us.

First the planes started taking off again, and we felt relieved. Then the cancellations started pouring in and it felt like our future was being drained through a huge crack somewhere. The schedules started getting cut. Managers moved about the office with pale faces, sometimes repeating what they'd heard in meetings about how much money we were losing every day.

Our survival was in question.

It took a few weeks but I started getting sick. Every morning as I passed the spot where I first heard those words, "..a major, major news story.." I became physically ill. My hands went numb and my head felt like it was floating in a lake at night, detached from my body. My stomach churned as the profile of the San Francisco skyline became visible and the horizon brightened with the approach of the sun and another day.

I don't know how many times I threw up on the way to work. The first time it happened I made it off the Bay Bridge and down to a city street where nobody could see me before hurling out my car window. But I didn't always make it that far. It became routine. I had to look for new streets to turn onto because I didn't want to start drawing an audience.

Did I tell anyone? Did anyone ask how we were? I don't remember. But I do remember management passing out a paper with lists of the warning signs of stress and depression. But airline people are tough and don't often seek help. There's a lot of pressure to just "handle it," especially at the airports in the customer service area.

Now it's the five-year anniversary of 9/11. And I don't care to make it a landmark sort of anniversary because I don't want to go through it all again. It's been regurgitated so many times by the president and his people that I want to scream. Something holy has been stolen and made to do to unholy things for the people that want to benefit from its power.

I only want the past to realize that it doesn't belong in my dreams any more. I don't want to go back to the building on Powell Street by day or night. My subconscious needs to realize that it's over. The job is done.

But like the other night, I end up back in that building. Sometimes I go back to get something I left behind and find other people secretly still working there. I've dreamt that I'm still working and nothing has changed except that I've somehow acquired the ability to levitate and I go happily about, floating from office to office only to realize my folly and suddenly lose my power and end up on the floor at the feet of a supervisor who offers me a piece of her retirement cake.

The other night I was there again and found a whole floor of the building I'd never seen before. I discovered what seemed to be a happy and comfortable apartment that looked like someone had just stepped out for a minute except I knew that it had been many years.

I snooped, just curious at first. And then I started finding things I wanted to keep. There were a couple of hand-made quilts rolled and put away in a closet. I discovered a chair made by a prominent Danish designer. It wasn't usable since the seat was at a 60 degree angle, but I wanted it anyway. And as I made plans to start collecting things I heard voices and realized I was trapped. A realtor was showing the place to a young couple. So I pretended to have the same idea in mind and looked for a way out.

Suddenly a woman burst through a back door and said "I know why you're here! You've come to see my snakes.." She opened up a large cloth bag and hastily brought out a fat grey snake and pushed its head toward mine.

I screamed and ran out the door she came in through, my heartbeat pounding so hard my head hurt.

That's when I woke up, heart beating just like it was in the dream. And I was sweating.

Now I sit here, writing down this nonsense with no obvious way to conclude. I must still sleep though I rarely awake feeling refreshed. The joys and demons of my waking life are still at odds with each other like adversaries on a giant Teeter Totter. At times I want to be dead and finished with all this. But I know there's still something still out there waiting to be discovered. I don't know if it's a person or belief or some kind of understanding. I just know that I'm still not finished here and if 9/11 happens a hundred more times before I figure out what it is, I'll have to survive them all.

Ha! I remember when I asked my mom if I could take something of hers to school for show-and-tell in second grade. It was a huge, rough garnet still embedded in stone. She told me "Yes, but if you lose it, don't come home."

Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for that garnet.