mslion

I've been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster today. My mom and a friend of hers wanted to go down to Union Station and see the travelling 9/11 Smithsonian exhibit that's been here for the past couple of months, and since it's over on Sunday, I took them down there today. It was very sad and brought back a lot of the stress and trauma of that day, what with the videos and artifacts and answering machine messages. They also had a 10-minute mini-documentary which was basically Peter Jennings reliving the day through interview clips and voice-overs of footage of his broadcast that day and an area where you could write about where you were and how 9/11 changed your life. All of those stories will become part of the national archive.

I admit it. I cried. More than once.

Which was completely anticipated, because there were little boxes of tissues sitting around all over the place.

Then you exit immediately into Science City, which is basically an interactive museum for children to learn about science in a very hands-on way. Full of hundreds of laughing, screaming, cheerful children. It was very jarring, but I think they did it that way on purpose--so that all of us who went through the display were reminded very quickly that life goes on and we can't dwell on the sadness. So I drove a mock Mars Rover, solved a crime in the "crime lab", redirected currents of water and sent a boat down the river I created with the help of a 5 year old boy named Jake, sent ping pong balls through a pneumatic tubing system, and laughed. Which in the end, was a very good thing.