Back in the thick of it

Earlier this week, I was plagued with a mysterious lower back pain. It started mid-day on Sunday, well after I landed in LA; and while it didn't feel like a muscle pull, I thought maybe it had to do with being smushed on the plane or sleeping the night before in a strange bed. (A Heavenly bed, though, so, weird...)

It actually felt more like the aches I sometimes get with a fever, but other than the pain, I had no other symptoms. Monday it hurt the worst, but by yesterday, I was fine. Until now, that is, when suddenly my upper back is hurting, not from a mysterious ailment, but from the intense stress of learning about the water pipe bursting in New York yesterday, the knowledge that some of my best friends were right there in the thick of it, and the memories of living in that city through 9/11 and the Blackout of 03 that came rushing back with a force I haven't felt possibly since I lived there.

Everyone is fine. Two people I know are staying at home today - their (different) offices are on the exact block that it happened. "I am working from home today because the doors blew out and the electricity is down," one explained to me. Another one said, "It was a little fucked up looking out the window at the steam. And the roar. Like hell opened up. The office is closed and I have my clothes in a bag in case of asbestos."

"I seriously can't handle it anymore," my friend Kristin wrote in a group email to a few of us this morning. "Last night I did an urban hike from Canal Street to 30th and Lex. It was 95 degrees, the subways were closed, I couldn't get a cab, and the buses were packed." Kristin was with me on September 11, as well as in the Blackout of 2003, and I know that urban hike up the avenues all too well. We've all done it, too many times now in our short adult lives.

Did you know that, at one time, I lived right there? I lived on 44th and Second Ave from 2001 to 2003, and worked on Madison and 45th from 1999 to 2003. My gym was the New York Sports Club on 41st and Third. Governor Pataki's office was just above the gym, and every time there was so much of a suggestion of raising the terror level, armed security came out in droves, protecting us from, well, ourselves.

Which was what this was, after all. A "faulty infrastructure" according to Bloomberg. No terrorism today. What keeps running through my mind, though, is how scared everyone must have been, during that period of time from the initial blast until safety was assured, because in those moments, it's easy to expect the worst. Not that it was always that way.

During 9/11, I remember being scared, but mostly I was - we all were - just in shock. The idea was so foreign to us, the threat didn't fully register until hours, days, months later. Possibly not even until the Blackout of 2003 happened, and the city collectively jumped, on edge, to the worst possible conclusion. Once terrorism was ruled out of that one, I was still able to push it to the back of my mind, eager to return to the naiveté I had, the comfy blanket of denial that let me live my life.

But then last year, two years into the safety of LA, the baseball player's plane hit, and my emotions did a nose dive as well. Immediately I thought it was terrorism, and held my breath for an afternoon until it wasn't. The other day, in the terminal at LAX, I was sure we were under attack, even though it was probably little more than a lost child or clueless tourist. I'm not even in New York anymore, and I'm still on edge, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I feel like one of the only ones, though. It's barely a blip on the LA radar. I emailed my old 44th street roommate, who lives in LA now, asking, "Can you believe it?" She hadn't even heard. No one in my office is talking about it, or seems concerned about our Spa there just a few blocks away. It's a lonely silence in my head today, watching the office move all around me, utterly unaware while I am completely consumed.

At the end of the day, maybe it isn't a big deal. People are okay, life goes on. I'm aware that I am kind of wallowing in this, from 2600 miles away and more than two years removed, finding a way to make this all about me. But for the first time since this all began, I think reality has finally just hit me. A heartly slap on the back that most definitely left a mark.