the anxieties of blue skies

Every year when the anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster rolls around, I find people mentioning how on that day, both in Manhattan and here in Chicago the sky was insultingly clear and blue and beautiful presiding over unspeakable things. Halcyon blue, maybe. How planes came from that blue, how bodies plummeted from the higher floors of the building and broke mid-flight in that blue (most people were likely gone before they hit the ground). How a normal early fall day in one of the busiest cities in the world was bought to a standstill. Many, in New York and elsewhere, can't see a clear cloudless day in September and not think about planes crashing into buildings.It was the end of my first summer working downtown here in Chicago, miles away from the damage, but subject to the same fear. After watching news coverage all morning, including a brief period at the beginning before I left for work when the first hit seemed like and accident (I probably wouldn't have walked over to…