9/11 Can't avoid it.

I've been trying to avoid it, I rarely watch tv news, but here it is. September 11. Of course I wish there had not been such a tragedy, but what I mostly wish is the love and compassion we had for each other in the days following September 11 would have stayed with us. With me.

I remember for a while it was OK to look into the eyes of strangers. It was like you knew that everyone you met could have lost someone, or knew someone who lost someone, and it was ok to express your sympathy, to ask, did you know anyone? Where were you when it happened?.

I remember people were nicer to each other, they drove their cars more respectfully. Not like this morning when I, driving well over the speed limit, was still passed by folks who thought I was going too slow. And so I cursed them. Crazy drivers.

I heard more pleases and thank yous, and fewer exasperated loud sighs that are some sort of I-can't-talk-to-you-cause-you're-a-stranger code for "Excuse me."

I miss those days. I wish that feeling had permanently imprinted on the American Psyche, and that every time any one of us were to encounter that the gruff old man at the newsstand, that the girl down the street who never smiles, the lady in the beemer who just cut you off... maybe just maybe instead of getting pissed off, we could have a little compassion. Because maybe just maybe that person just lost a friend, a wife, a brother....