SEPTEMBER 11th, FIVE YEARS LATER

Article written for CNN

My step daughter was in Manhattan on 9/11, while I was at home in California. Somehow she was able to make several calls to me shortly after the planes struck the WTC. She told me to turn on the TV because something horrible had happened. I'm not certain exactly what I said to her, but I was strangely complacent. This caused her to snap at me, telling me I was in denial. I guess she thought I didn't realize the magnitude of what had occurred. The truth was I had been expecting it for a long time. I knew something horrendous was going to occur as early as 1997. When it finally became reality, I almost felt relieved.

I'm not employed by any government agency, although I did spend fourteen years in the criminal justice system. Since 1993, I have been a published novelist, and am presently writing by thirteenth novel. I write thrillers similar to John Grisham, a genre referered to as "legal thrillers" due to the success of Grisham's novels. Most of my books have been based on real cases I handled during my years in law enforcement and as an investigative probation officer. I am not a psychic, nor do I believe in the paranormal. I do have what might be classified as precognition, although I'm not entirely certain such a thing exists. I do know that years before I published, my mother told me she saw a store window full of my books. Later, I saw this window at the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue and it was filled with my books.

When these instances of precognition occur, however, I live through the events as though they are occurring in the present. One time I was certain we were having an earthquate and told my husband to turn on the TV so we could find out where the epicenter was and the magnitude. When we found nothing, I was perplexed, and tried to put it out of my mind. The next day, at approximately the same time, the San Francisco earthquate occurred.

I also lived through what I assume was another premonition, but this one was far more frightening. I was driving on the freeway with my daughter and her friend one day when I suddenly felt as if I was in a tunnel. I could feel violent shaking, and saw the road in front of me buckling. When it ended, my fear was so great, I wanted to move out of California, and tried to tell my family they needed to do the same. A number of years later, the Northridge earthquake occurred. The same road I was traveling when I experienced the premonition was buckled, and in the same location. In addition, my son and his family's home was located near Northridge and although they weren't injured, their home was damaged. The phones lines were down, and for hours, I was terrified they had been injured. Not long after, my husband and I moved to New York, where we had an apartment in Manhattan and a country home in an area called Tuxedo Park.

In 1997, my husband and I decided to divorce, which is an emotionally traumatic experience under any circumstances. My husband moved into the apartment in the city, and I remained in Tuxedo Park. Six or seven months into our separation, I began to get the feeling that something terrible had happened. My attorney's office was in the city, and I even called him after looking up while walking one on the street one day and seeing that the top floors of the building had been destroyed. Of course, he didn't take my call seriously, and I felt embarassed to even have brought it up. After 9/11, he said he didn't recall my phone call. At least he was safe, as were most of my friends and acquaintances.

This feeling of impending doom continued to intensify. I attributed it to the stress of the divorce. Many days I would drive to the city and end up sobbing, looking at people on the street and feeling certain some of them would soon be dead. I couldn't put my finger on what was happening, just that I knew it would reach beyond Manhattan and be devastating to the entire country and the world.

On one occasion, I picked up my step daughter, who lived in Manhattan at the time, and I impusively decided to drive to Washington late at night. The capitol seemed like an Internet site to me, as if it had been destroyed and quickly rebuilt. I began to think I was losing track of reality. Why did I feel this overwhelming sense of doom? Was I going to die? Was someone else going to die? Of all my children, only my step daughter and I seemed to be locked in this nightmare. Not long after the trip to Washington, I sold my home in New York and bought a house in California. I felt safer here, but I still felt as if something had already happened and I couldn't understand why I was the only one who was aware of it.

About a year prior to 9/11, I returned to New York. I had gone there to look at apartments to rent, having convinced myself that whatever I had been sensing was not real. Since many of my friends and publishing contacts were in Manhattan, I thought I could regain my sense of well-being and overcome my fears by taking a second place there. One night, I went to a social engagement only blocks away from the World Trade Center. I became violently ill in the taxi on the way home. The next day I looked at a lovely apartment near the United Nations. I couldn't stay, however, as I began crying uncontrollably. All I wanted to do was leave Manhattan as soon as possible. The entire city seemed to be cloaked in tragedy.

When I returned to California, I spend the months leading up to 9/11 working on a novel and sequestering myself in my home. I didn't watch television, date, or see friends. I attempted to recenter myself by doing on indepth study of Michaelangelo's works when I wasn't writing. I also spent a great deal of time in prayer, a part of my life I had previously neglected.

When my daughter called me that fateful morning, I could at least reclaim a measure of sanity. The terrible event I had been waiting for had finally occurred. The feeling was similar to when you have a friend or loved one suffering from a terminal illness, and you receive the phone call that they have died. You are sad, but you have already grieved and are emotionally prepared for their passing. You are also relieved that their suffering is over, and that they are now at peace.

Now I have developed a new problem, and wonder if others might be experiencing something similar. Nothing seems real anymore. I feel as if I'm living in the movie "The Matrix." When I look at footage of the planes hitting the twin towers, it seems surreal, like a movie. Maybe it was simply too real to accept as reality. Or perhaps since I felt it coming for so long, or at times, believed it had already happened, I'm afraid it never really happened at all, that it was somehow staged or that something about what we were told isn't true.

My law enforcement background additionally tells me that cerrain things simply could not have occurred as reported. How could the terrorists passports have been found on the street a day later among such massive rubble? Even our president's actions and reactions that day were so inappropriate that I was incredulous. There's a sense of unreality to the military actions we've taken as a result of 9/11. Who were trying to punish? How were they going to capture the terrorists when they couldn't even be entirely certain who was behind the attacks? Don't try to tell me that I'm naive. I know about locating, capturing, and prosecuting criminals. A country didn't attack the United States. Individuals acting in a group attacked us. We have street gangs with enough manpower, money, and organizattion to cause an event like 9/11, although I don't think this is what we should fear. When I say street gangs, I'm not referring to five or six homeboys, but gangs that spill over from prison to the streets, with enormously high numbers of members. Have we forgotten Oklahoma City and people like Timothy McVeigh?

The deaths of innocent civilians haunt me, and the numbers of the so-called enemies we have killed have never been factually reported. We also don't see the maimed and injured US soliders. They are kept hidden like a dirty secret. So many lost limps, Don't they deserve to be noticed? Are we ashamed of them? Are we supposed to pretend the only people suffering are the dead. The living wounded are the ones who are suffering. God help us, shouldn't we know about them, so we can send them letters of support and visit them? Most of them are so young, they look like children.

Where was the reasoning behind attacking a country to find terrorists, when we had no precise knowledge of where they were hiding? Los Angeles is full of murderers, pedophilles, rapists, armed robbers, aronsists, cop killers and even terrorists. They sit beside us in movie theaters. They walk beside us on the streets. We can't bomb Los Angeles, can we?

A close friend of mine, who has been involved in politics for years, made an appalling statement to me recently. This person said, "I never thought the day would come that I would be ashamed to be an American." I have not reached that point, and will always love our beautiful country, but I now why I felt such overwhelming sadness. The leaders of our great nation have erred to such a grave degree, in my opinion, Americans are in dire danger.

September 11th may not have been the nightmare I envisioned. I saw more than I have said. I saw cities where there were no people, where even the dogs and pets had left nothing behind but their waste. Can we change it, if in fact, something worse is in our not so distant future? A nuclear attack is too awful to consider, but we must. There are some decisions that cannot be amended. We have created a global situation where we are now hated, and not my simply radical groups.

I have an ageless, wise friend named Mary. Long before 9/11, she sent me a package containing useful things, but somewhat odd, almost like a survival kit. I was baffled, so we spoke, and she told me she "took me to the alter because it was time to pray." I have prayed, and I will continue to pray, but what I wish I could do is to take action. The question on all of our minds is what can we do about the state our country is now in, and the seemingly ominous road that lies ahead of us? Who will, or can, steer the ship back on course? Have we sailed too far to turn back?
Nancy Taylor Rosenberg - Writing a Bestseller