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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Retraced steps

I remember September 11, 2001. I was returning from a conference in Germany and I remember standing helplessly at the airport in Germany watching the unthinkable unfurling in front of my eyes on CNN on the TVs there - all the flights were grounded to allow transatlantic flights space to return to their departure points. I spent the evening frantically calling friends in the US to check they were all OK (thankfully they were, although some by the slimmest margins).

So today has been a replay, with redemption. I returned by air from Germany today, but this time there was no atrocity to imagine, no fear for friends, no anxiety that my flight was part of a global series of attacks. Apart from unusually scrupulous screening, it was all uneventful and grey. A small, annual step in the gradual healing of the memory and the redemption of the date.

posted at 6:44 PM (UK) | |