Who We Were
Sarahs Bunting past.
I was 28, no greys. I had two cats, one grey. I lived, for a moment, in a loft in Toronto I was subletting from a college friend. The cats have gone. They are also here, in simple cedar boxes that contain the gravel of their bones, because when the time came, I couldn’t bring nothing home. The Little Joe box sits on my desk, near whatever I’m having to drink, because that’s where he’d be, fixing to knock it over. But he’s gone.
The college friend has gone too. A seizure when he was alone; a sharp corner whose danger wasn’t known; a grand procession to the cemetery. I was proud of that, for him. It was something — the kind of something that’s almost nothing, but something nonetheless. Something to keep him here, and every time I see a Molson tap in a pub, here he is again, clanking off the Airporter with a straining duffel for the American minors.
I was on Paxil. Lord, I hope that one’s gone; it didn’t do what it needed to, just shrank down what I felt to a hallway, mild and medium. The sobbing I did eighteen years ago today I had not done for several seasons prior. Church giggles were like a story I’d read. One thing penetrated the white-noisy middleness, the worst possible thing.
What the Paxil tried to treat is still here. I have anxiety disorder. I always have had it. It changes, that beast, it evolves: hammering visible heartbeats, waves of despair, compulsions about foods and routes and lucky broken tchotchkes taken around everywhere, agoraphobia. Terror, and the war on it, every day retaking the same ground. The enemy never tires. At last, and by accident, I found the right meds, and the spirals still happen, but now they have an end. But they wait here for me.
I used to come to Tomato Nation every day. I approved comments and made updates. I gave advice, and I wish I hadn’t given some of it. Today, a year’s gone by. In the lead graphic, my grandfather’s eyes still regard us. I miss those days sometimes, three or four apartments ago, different desks and coffee, the wind in different trees, dropping a different bag on the ground all “How was the day?” But on Tomato Nation, those days can still be now, even though they’re gone. We can still be here together, not the same way, just the same way, with our old selves.
Isn’t that the anguishing gift of life — that what’s gone can yet remain? Hilly, my uncle, Dr. Ellen’s t-shirt-cannon strings of emojis leaving her ghost signature on my Instagram, my aunt who married us…my grandma who I watched Charles and Diana get married with by phone back when that could cost a fortune (and did; sorry again, Dad), whose pen cup I’m looking at, whose gaudiest costume ring I have on today, who taught me geranium husbandry and old songs and what “favorite” could mean. What a big space to leave and still be everywhere.
People use that Faulkner line about the past sometimes like it’s a bad thing, like we can’t escape, and sometimes that’s the truth of it. Other times, it’s nice to leave a space beside me for what’s gone, for who I was and who was with me then.
And for a slice of cake with confetti frosting. Happy birthday, Don.
Tags: September 11th
I come back to check TN from time to time but always today. I was hoping to see a post from you, and there it was. Beautiful words as always.
Thank you for leaving the light on for us, Sarah.
Happy Birthday, Don.
I was 16 then, going (as they say) on 17. I’d been reading you on MBTV, then TWoP, then here ever since. My best friend and I used to be avid readers of The Vine- sometimes we’d say ‘what would Sars say on this one?’ when exchanging questions & advice over emails. And I think sometimes about things you’ve said in the Vine, or random other things will pop into my mind, like the Famous Ghost Monologues, and I’ll think of you, and your words. And then every year on this day, waiting until it’s almost the 12th here in Australia, checking for updates, eager to hear your words. Glad to have you, and your words, with us, today, and every day.
Happy birthday, Don.
Today. Every year. Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sarah
Thanks, as always, Sars. This is the only place I visit today.
Happy birthday, Don. I still believe you’re out there.
So many people have said it here – and far more eloquently than I would. But I want you to see us here, being together with you. Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars, for being here every September 11. It’s my quiet little tradition, and I appreciate everyone here. ??
Since MBTV for me, too. And since I’m much more a reader than a listener, I’ve missed you, Sarah. Checked in last night (OK, this morning) around 3:30 am and found nothing, although I held out hope that I was just too early. Thank God I was because I need you on this of all days. I had no connection with anyone hurt or killed on 9/11 — except for you — but as a human I was and am connected to everyone hurt or killed. Your posts always remind me of that fact (as if I need reminding), so thank you again.
Happy birthday and thank YOU, too, Don.
There’s nothing I can say that seems adequate besides, thank you (and happy birthday, Don). My company did a moment of silence this morning at 8:46 a.m. but in typical [Company] fashion, they [Company’d] it up. So I come here and reflect on how we’re nearly two decades away from the events of this date but at the same time, it seems like it just happened (and I was lucky enough to not be personally affected the way others were. My family and I were safe in the outer suburbs of Philadelphia).
From one walking ball of anxiety to another: thank you <3
(and thank you again for your kind response to my Vine letter way back in like 2010).
Thank you, Sars, that means a lot.
Thank you so much, Sars. Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you again this year and every year. Happy birthday Don.
Your voice from the past and present is a comfort.
Happy Birthday Don.
I come every year for your writing, and to shed some tears, and to wish Don a happy birthday. But tonight I realized that I also come for the comments and the names I still recognize and the community that still exists.
So thank you, Sars, for being the link that connects us all.
I’m here too. It’s what we do on this day. Sars, you gave me advice once on The Vine. I felt really alone and needed someone to say, “hey, I see you”. And you did and then I felt better. Nice work, lady.
Thanks for the kind words, everyone, as always. And for those of you under fire from life, hang in there.
And for all of you…an “And Then There Were Four” essay is coming.
Happy Birthday Don, wherever you are.
18 years…I couldn’t wrap my head around it then. Still can’t. But I come here every year on this day, because you could articulate the things I still cannot.
I think of you and Don every 9/11. I read it when I was still raw and you wrote about it so clearly, with pain and hope. So thank you.
Happy birthday, Don. Hope you’re happy and healthy.
Thank you, Sarah. I needed the Nation badly; you don’t know, can’t know, the stuff this community helped me get through. I’ve changed and maybe grown up, but it feels good to visit old friends. It’s my birthday, too, so it’s a little extra present for me to see the gang back together.
This space (and your specific story) is still part of my annual pilgrimage. Thank you for leaving the door ajar.
Happy birthday, Don.
I was in VT with my daughter 18 years ago. I remember the absolutely empty sky devoid of air traffic. I remember hearing the news in a little shop from someone listening to a portable radio behind the counter, then rushing back to the hotel to turn on the tv to watch the news…only to have to turn it off a few minutes later because my daughter started freaking out over what we were seeing. I remember taking her to Ben and Jerry’s, and to the Teddy Bear Factory and being quietly amazed and proud of those working there who put on smiles and did the best they could when the world was falling apart. I remember watching the sun set over Lake Champlain with many other people that evening. There was a fellow playing Amazing Grace on a set of pan pipes. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.
I don’t remember how I found this site, but I have returned every year to be with this community and to have a quiet place to just…be.
Thank you to everyone here. Your stories help my aching heart. I read every one of your comments.
Thank you, Sarah, for keeping this place for us to be together. Your words are a balm for my soul.
And thank you, Don. Happy birthday.
Happy birthday Don, and wherever you are now I hope it’s a good one.
I like the old self I am when I’m here, all these selves later. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks, Don.
A beautiful one this year. Thanks, as always, for creating this space for us all to visit each year. My own little digital pilgrimage.
“Chain Mail. Jesus CHRIST.”
Every year since the day it happened, TN is the only place I make sure I get back to. Thank you for always being here, Sars. And happy birthday, Don, wherever you are in the world.
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I discovered you today, thanks to @LindaHolmes. I read your 9/11 piece and cried. I cry every 9/11. And today’s essay. You got anxiety just right. I recently lost a beloved brother and a beloved cat. It’s been a terrible summer. At least I know I’m not alone.
You aren’t, at all. Welcome!
I truly have no words as yours, per usual, fit perfectly. Thank you, Sars. No emojis here so Heart, Heart, Heart. Happy birthday, Don.
I just recently sent both Jack letters around to someone while we gossiping about advice columnists that don’t quite hold a candle to the Vine. That and the chain mail letter are probably my favorite Vine letters of all time. I wonder how the Chain Mail LW is doing these days. I hope she ditched that d-bag long before her letter even got published.
I like that somehow we became a congregation.
Happy birthday Don. X
It took me 3 days to get here, but here I am. Good to see you’re still around, Sars. Happy Birthday, Don!
The things I read here raised me in so many ways. Thank you, always.
Hi – glad to see you back here. Missed reading this on 9/11, was dealing with my own depression.
Just realized how long I have been reading your words…I can just about refer to it as “decades”. In the beginning I was married, now I am not. I then had a close friend who lived across the hallway. Now she is gone, let the drink take over.
My sweet Smudgie cat is also in a wooden box after letting me live with him for 15 years.
But I still have a couple of Tomato Nation magnets on my refrigerator.
Thank you. This is still one of my favorite sites and you are one of my favorite writers.
[…] to get lost in my phone instead of paying attention to my absolutely knackered friends, and read what Sarah had written this year – which was very good, as always – and thought how life had continued. Half my life since then. […]
It’s a lot closer to September 11, 2020 than September 11, 2019, but something made me look up your site for the first time in a long time. I was a semi-regular reader from sometime in the early aughts, and I’d never heard of of Donors Choose before your annual fundraising drives. Anyway, as with everyone else, there have been a lot of changes big and small over the years, but one thing that’s maintained for me is the small automatic monthly donation to DC I set up more than a decade ago.
Almost another year has passed and another September 11th approaches. I miss Tomato Nation. I miss The Vine. I miss who I used to be back when I first found this site. So much has changed, some for the better, some not. Where will we be when September 2021 is on the horizon? I await the dawn eagerly, and wonder how old Don will be this year.
Happy birthday, Don.
Hey Sars, hey everybody.
19 years – feels like yesterday, feels like forever.
Happy birthday, Don.
Like so many others, this is my pilgrimage on 9/11. So great to see all the TN’ers still visiting.
Thank you, Sars. Happy Birthday, Don.
Thinking of this today. This helped me make sense of it all… I hope people are well. Happy Birthday Don….