This morning I woke up from a dream in which the twin towers still stood. I remember trying to fly a plane, alone in the dark, into darkness, and trapped in the lobby, surrounded by bright white flames and no doors, and then dark again.

On September 11th I looked up at a clear blue sky free of airplanes and I wondered if the next war had begun. Cool fall air with buses that roared and people who were mostly quiet. Parliament Hill was roped off, and the streets were filled with police. Tourists leaned over the police lines to try to take photos of the War Memorial, and the police.

Where I work, people know what it means to see the danger and hopelessness of the South brought home, and they gathered around a television in the meeting room. It all came at once: another plane, and another, and another, and the buildings "taken down," as Peter Mansbridge said, as if they were paintings or Christmas decorations.

A quiet fellow in the elevator told me, "This is going to change things; the order of the world is going to change. It has to with something like this. Jesus..."

I couldn't stop looking, but I wanted it to end. I went into my office and cried. Donna had to teach; classes weren't cancelled at the University of Ottawa. "All those poor people," I told her on the phone, "All those poor people."

I had been in Washington only three weeks before, driven past the Pentagon into the lush green of northern Virginia. It had been my birthday, one far away from friends and family, but everyone had been so nice I was happy that day. I ate sushi at Reagan Airport.

I was supposed to have a meeting at 11. Robert came into my office and told me that our building, three blocks south of the Parliament, was going to be evacuated. My friend in the office next to me had been intent on staying, but a few minutes later I saw him with his briefcase. "I was talking to my wife on the phone and she said, 'I'd rather you were home.'"

Was there a meeting, or not? I couldn't find Robert. I gathered my things, wondering if I would be back in the office at all that week, wondering what was coming next.

That day hasn't ended. There are moments -- minutes, or an afternoon -- when average-everydayness seems to return, but I cannot make it last. I fear for myself, and I fear for what we might become.

I hope all of you are safe, even if you don't feel all that safe.