As I stand with friends and strangers this morning at Seattle Center, I, like you will be reliving what I was doing 10 years ago when terrorists attacked the United States.  I was en route to give a speech to a group of American government ex-pats who were returning to live back in the USA; Bill Gates, II and III had been asked to show the sides of Seattle we each knew. Bill III spoke at breakfast — and all hell broke loose before I showed up for lunch.

After being spellbound by the TV horrors of that fateful day, I decided to do one important task — a new column collecting the thoughts swirling around inside of me. I quickly drove to the Seattle Times office to write the column below.

Much has been written in the ten years following that tragic morning. I hope that this early/first moment of clarity has helped make us all more global, more realistic about America, and has not taken our optimism from us.

This piece was first published September 12, 2001

A moment of clarity that links us all

Jean Godden / Times staff columnist

I walked out into my front yard yesterday morning, stunned by the horror of news flashes flooding in from New York and Washington, D.C., death and destruction. And there in my garden I spotted a rose, one perfect red rose.

I cannot say why, but I stopped. I studied the rose, amazed at its perfection. I realized that on any other morning, a less star-crossed one, I might never have noticed, might have passed it by, unremarked.

All of us — all we survivors — are witnesses to yet another landmark in history. It’s one of those bookmarks in our lives. For an older generation, the question was: Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot? When an assassin took the life of Martin Luther King? What did you do during the war — any of several wars?

For the younger generation, it’s: Where were you when Mount St. Helens erupted and covered the West with ash? When the WTO riots took over the streets of Seattle? When Seattle’s Mardi Gras turned into a melee of mayhem and murder?

This will become the moment of clarity, the realization that, after all, we are yoked to one another, tethered closer than we imagined.

We’re tied to those who watched the World Trade Center towers explode, those who fled the falling debris, those who were injured, those who were dying. And, though we don’t yet know their names, we probably also are tied in some way to the unknown terrorists who plotted this unbelievable devastation.

One has to wonder if it will ever again be possible to believe this nation, or any other, can ignore any strife, any extremist deed, that occurs however far beyond its borders. There is no safe haven for anyone in a world turned toxic with hatred of others.

Will this make us stronger world citizens? Or just more isolationist and nationalistic? Will this lead us to awareness of world conditions?

Those are the questions I asked myself en route to my newsroom desk yesterday. Not that I didn’t stop to notice the scene in the newsroom. We are a morning paper. And mornings are usually a quiet time, a time of calm efficiency.

Not so yesterday. I passed the banks of televisions, blaring the horrifying details and showing, over and over, the moments of impact.

I passed a productive whirlwind: reporters, editors, copy editors, graphic artists and photographers deftly crafting an extra edition. Their work went smoothly, propelled by deadlines. There wasn’t time to feel the rock at the pit of one’s being, to recognize that not tomorrow or the next day or the days after will bring complacency.

A colleague arrived at her desk, ready to be sent to cover who knew what story. She shook her head and said, “I’m glad I don’t have children. I wouldn’t know what to tell them.”

Children yes. That’s the crux of the problem. What do we tell our children and, later on, our children’s children? That we were there, witnesses to terror? That we are mortal, as ephemeral as the September rose in my garden? That we hunger for one moment of beauty in a day filled with agony. Our world seems in collision.