A New York Minute

Life before 9/11 seems like an age of innocence in retrospect. Last week I found my birthday cards from that August - I'd just turned 30, and was blissfully happy in the mountains and orange groves in Spain, pregnant with our first baby. The card from the pilot was so optimistic, so full of love and promise. In photos we both look young. Everything lay ahead - as soon as his pilot training finished, it was guaranteed he'd get a great job, we planned to build a home and a life for our little family.

He was in the air when the planes hit the World Trade Centre. As soon as he landed, he called me. I had not listened to the radio that morning because I was writing, deep in the second draft of the novel, and we never used the TV. I tuned into the Spanish news, and remember sinking to the floor in disbelief as the newsreels looped again and again. We both love New York, and have spent a lot of time there. I remember stretching out over the city on the cold glass panels at the top of the Trade Centre and feeling like I was flying, like I was on top of the world. It seemed impossible that two buildings so iconic, so vast and solid could crumple and fall. The devastation shattered the fragile, beautiful bubble I'd been living in for months - it suddenly felt ridiculous to be the only person for miles around, alone and pregnant, writing fiction with only a husky and some feral cats for company. I wanted to be with people suddenly - wanted to be back in civilisation and able to help.

Everything changed that day. The scale of human tragedy was, is, inconceivable - the children who lost parents, the parents who lost children. The other day the six year old asked me what a terrorist was. How can you explain something that makes no sense to you to a child? How, on the one hand can you tell them several times a day not to fight - if you are hit by someone weaker than you, not to hit back? How can you teach them non-aggression, forgiveness, and then try to explain the need to defend your belief in freedom and democracy by force if necessary (the big 'if necessary')? How can you explain war, and senseless killing without scaring them and making the world seem a devastating place? I ended up telling her a terrorist was like a bully. Perhaps that was avoiding the issue but she understood. I want them to remain children, to retain their innocence for as long as possible. The children of the people who died that day had that chance taken away from them.

In the UK we grew up with the threat of the IRA, and even in Spain there were regular attacks by ETA. We are used to terrorism in Europe, but the US attacks scarred all of us - it was the end of a certain innocence for everyone. Even for our little family, on the other side of the world and untouched by personal loss, it meant no one was recruiting pilots. We returned to the UK with no airline jobs, no home of our own and a small baby. But we were lucky - we still had each other, and I don't think there's a person in the Western world who didn't hold their loved ones closer that day.

I remember not being able to write for weeks - even articles suddenly seemed ridiculous, unimportant, a folly. In a world that had gone insane, I wanted to do something that mattered. Now I think at times like these perhaps you need fiction, humour, art - all the light and creative things that remind people of why it is great to be alive. Then, it was a long time until I was able to return to the book - three years in fact. Three years of fighting our way back up thanks to the love and generosity of family and sheer damn hard work, when I was too tired from having to work full time with a young baby, and too heartbroken at all the lost dreams to think of finishing it. I wanted to, it was always there at the corner of my mind, and when I returned to it, its twin themes of love and loss took on a greater depth.

Anger and hatred caused the tragedy - a fanatic is a fanatic whatever his or her race or religion. During the time when I lost faith in pretty much everything, the one belief I hung onto is that our world is essentially a good and beautiful place, and that we are lucky to be alive however much it hurts sometimes. These conflicts - religious, political, moral - and the shockwaves that ripple out and affect us all, are man made. There is a natural order and beauty to the world that transcends this - call it God, call it Love - but it is this balance that I think we are all seeking in our hearts, and only that is the source of real contentment. We each have the potential for this within us, and wherever you go in the world if you travel with an open heart and humility you'll find you have more in common with people than not. We all want and need the same basic things, we all have the same potential for change, contentment, happiness. I know nothing about war - the older I get the less sense it makes to me, but at some basic level the need to fly above the anger and find a diplomatic solution seems the only way to resolve a conflict that has so many seemingly irreconcilable levels. There's a wonderful line from Tom Stoppard: 'Life's bounty is in its flow. Later is too late.' When I was unable to continue with the novel, I had that as my screensaver, the words looping around and around giving me hope. I still believe it. Survival, strength, solidarity - these are the virtues that come out of these times, and above all Love gets us through. Today, as Jean-Marie Colombani wrote in Le Monde the day after the atrocities: 'We Are All Americans. We are all New Yorkers.'

TODAY'S PROMPT: What are your memories of 9/11, what does it mean to you? Where were you when you heard the news? Have you ever written about it? Perhaps today would be a good day to reflect not only on the sorrow and anger, but the lessons learnt and strength gained.