I’ve been out of town visiting family in Virginia, arriving back last night, and waking up to 9/11. My grandmother, who grew up in NYC (and then moved to rural Virginia when she married), said to me “all things were better before.” She could have meant her health, or the countryside that keeps being developed, or her life when she was completely independent. But I think she meant everything.

Waking up a newbie New Yorker on 9/11 (having moved here from rural Oregon 3 years ago), I can tell you it is just as sad as when it happened. Nothing has changed. My grandmother is right that “things were better before.” But that’s how it goes. That’s our fate. It’s up to us to make things better, through understanding, through diplomacy, through voting, through making our voices heard. It’s up to us.

Let’s make 9/11 not just about NYC, but about everyone suffering unjustly in the world.

Drinking tea, throughout the centuries, has been used as tool to find truth and offer comfort. I’m going to drink tea with my brother later today. It will help me remember and move forward with compassion.