Monsters Out of the Bag

The class started by opening my amygdala and closing my hippocampus and I was left too frozen to begin.  I wish these emotions were somehow part of the lesson, and I could have created a piece that showed how I am still so fragile when it comes to 9/11.  But hearing first of a boy who asks about how could you have known all day and not tell me of my father's passing, brought me back to the same situation eight years ago with my husbands little brother and sister.  I knowingly fed them KFC to make sure they had food in their belly, before the news came home to them.
The story's that Aileen then told of her day on 9/11, receiving information, answering questions, and making sure all the students were safely home by foot, reminded me of being on the train the following weekend in 2001.  A boy about three, stood on the seat in front of me and started talking.  From hello's, the conversation jumped to the way the planes crashed into the buildings.  He would make the sound effects, move is arm and hand as the plane, and kept repeating, pausing to point in the direction of where the buildings used to be.
I asked him if he was ok, and reassured him that it was safe now.  I asked him, gently, if he remembered anything else about that day, and how did that make him feel?  We had a solid conversation about 9/11 and the three year old was still all smiles as we approached our destination.  His father turned and thanked me and asked if I was a teacher.
All this, and the waiting to see what the next target was, and the sky with no planes or sounds of planes, the days following with the smoke rising into the blue sky, and months later when I would still flinch when a plane flew behind buildings, all this is what I was thinking when class began with handing out the cardboard's and scissors.  I know we continue to constantly move on, but I needed a minute to regain myself, or I needed to continue and use the sadness, fear, and memory to drive a creative work.  I needed to harness my feelings into that kind of outlet, because I know I can produce great work when I'm crying whether it's by art or writings.  I'm interested in getting the book Forever After: New York City Teachers on 9/11, and as I've written before, I don't read books regularly.  But it's to learn, from our history, from myself.