September 12

One of the interesting aspects of being a media-obsessed American living in Tokyo is that when major news stories break I often know about them before my friends in the US. I get home from the office when most of them are still hitting the snooze button.

Unfortunately, over these few months I've found myself glued to the tv watching coverage of bombings in London, starving babies in Niger, forced evacuations in Gaza, floods in Mumbai, stampeding Iraqis, and the destruction of New Orleans. The upside is that I'm more aware of what's going on the news. The downside is that I'm more aware of what's going on in the news.

The time difference also makes it seem like I had to live through the 9/11 anniversay twice. I hadn't thought much about it in the last week between Joanna's visit and the non-stop news cycle of Hurricane Katrina. So I was surprised at my tearful reaction to a CNN story about a woman who was stranded in Newfoundland with thousands of other passengers from flights forced to land when US airspace was closed. Even thought the passengers from the 38 stranded airliners nearly outnumbered the citizens of the small town, they were protected and nurtured during those frightening and uncertain days.

I vaguely remember hearing the story of The Good People of Gander in the hazy months following 9/11. There were so many stories then; I don't think my brain could process them all. Four years later, sitting in my little dorm room 6000 miles from New York, I remember the way we all felt that day as we tried to find our friends and call our families. I'm happy to know that these temporary refugees were sheltered by kind strangers.