September 11

Dear Friends and Family,

Ten years ago, I was in the bar at the Dniepro Hotel, meeting with our project's senior manager from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD. Serious, big deal meeting. Marianne was on a bus, going to organize our going away dinner, since she was planned to fly the next day to San Francisco for a last visit before we started our big road trip throughout Europe.

Five minutes into the meeting, my EBRD colleague got a phone call from his London office with a jumbled and confusing message. We asked the bartender to turn on the TV, watched for an hour, and parted with "The world has changed".

Marianne got her call from a State Department friend. Similar jumble. Similar confusion. She got off the bus, caught another, and made it home in time to join most Americans, as we started our hours mesmerized by television images beyond our imagination.

I wrote a diary about that day. It was good therapy. Today, maybe I need therapy again.

Once again we are facing a new chapter in our life; retirement rather than a road trip, but we are still a long way from home and feeling both closer and farther today. We are still watching CNN International and they are playing some of the same scenes we devoured a decade ago, but there are new ones too: Memorials that help with closure; Children speaking of fathers, mothers, aunts and uncles they miss, but have learned to live with as memories; politicians from the left and right standing next to one another.

We will draw encouragement from the hopeful scenes. We will remember the human reaction to human tragedy, even from neighbors who are not of one mind with many parts of American philosophy and behavior. We will remember the sympathy and best wishes we received from people on our European road trip in 2001 and 2002, just for being Americans.

As for retirement, that's still a few months away, and will only be "semi-" we hope. We'll stay away from America for awhile, but it's still home and no time more so than on the Fourth of July and 9/11.

Take care and stay safe.

John