The world has now entered into uncharted territory. Never before have we had to deal with the possibility of bio-terrorism on the scale that it presents itself now. Each morning the experts try to answer questions that, after awhile, leave them baffled. The health agencies of the world, especially those of the United States, are coming to grips with attacks on its people that are taken right out of a science fiction novel. We used to believe that the nuclear bomb was the ultimate force that we had to protect ourselves from….lo and behold, over the course of the past two months, we also have to include airlines being used as weapons, and anthrax in the mail system. I know how you feel…I too have a sense of saying, “Am I dreaming….will someone wake me up?” Unfortunately, this is not a dream.

So what can we do? We prepare ourselves the best we can, while trying to maintain as much of a normal life as possible. We are writing the rulebook as we go along. Fifty years from now, these times will be looked back upon and studied on how we dealt with this crisis. Recently I had a conversation with a friend, where we compared life before September 11th, and after. My friend mentioned, “Jennifer, doesn’t it seem like life before all this felt like a cartoon…where now, we’re living in reality?” I replied, “Perhaps, but one thing’s for sure…..life cannot be taken for granted now.”

This all seems strange to us….I too feel that I’m living a part in a movie….wondering, how come I didn’t learn any of this at school? The answer could possibly be this was never supposed to happen…while in a strange way deep down inside all this doesn’t seem so surprising. Strange, isn’t it? Our children ask questions, where the answers are changed day by day. The grandparents remind us of what it was like during World War 2…while the baby boomers and the generation X’ers wonder, what comes next? We’re all kind of “learning on the job.” We may make mistakes, but we will get it right.

It’s kind of spooky, whoever is doing all this seems to be about two steps ahead of us. They seem to know where to hit us, and how we’re going to react. This is some kind of intellectual warfare….how much time and thinking process does it take to examine the American landscape and look for its weaknesses? Whoever the culprits are, they have done this. They have done their homework. I’m sure this has not escaped the US Government, and they are working on it as diligently as possible, to protect us.

We will prevail….hopefully, we can examine some of the reasons on why all this has happened….in the meantime, protect yourself, and those you love. America has come together, in a way that was once considered impossible.

We are one,
Jennifer Avalon
© 2001 Jennifer Avalon