This is a message I sent out a few hours ago

Dear Family and Friends, Marilyn and I live on the 17th floor of a co-op in Brighton Beach, in south Brooklyn near the ocean. Our bedroom windows face north, and until early this morning we had a magnificent view of the New York skyline stretching from Staten Island in the west to Kennedy Airport in the east.

We were awakened this morning by a call from our dear friend Marion Walsworth up in Maine, who said "Get up and look out your window." She'd heard the news on the radio and called because she knew we were late sleepers due to my work hours.

From less than 10 miles away we could see smoke pouring from the Twin Towers as we watched the close-ups and the commentary on TV. We heard about the suicide crash on the Pentagon in Washington and the other plane crash near Pittsburgh, and the horrible enormity of the attack clawed its way in deeper.

Then the Towers collapsed, first one, and later the other. We were too far away to see it directly, but when we looked out the window it looked like a volcano had exploded. A huge grayish-tan cloud spread eastward, blotting out Manhattan, then Brooklyn Heights, moving its way southeast.

At that point I figured it was time to run downstairs and pick up some emergency supplies. By the time I got to the street there was a thickening haze in the air, and soot and ash were falling like tiny snow flurries. And the smell in the air was the smell of tragedy.

We live in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, and there was a flyer downstairs stating that our co-op complex had put itself on emergency alert as a precaution. There were many more police cars than normal patrolling the area. It's not very likely at all that we'd be the target of a car bomb, but right now it's a case of "better safe than sorry." For hours now, we've been hearing sirens several times a minute, and it's hard to tell if they're police or ambulances.

We've lost a part of our skyline -- but so much more than that, we've lost possibly thousands of innocent human lives. And ignorant fools here and there around the World mistakenly cheer and think this is a "victory."

Some sick, twisted, deranged people tried to rip the heart and soul out of this city, this country, today.

But they failed, as terrorists always will. We've been horribly maimed; but our heart, our soul, our sense of community, though battered, are still whole. This is something these "heroes," in their single-minded anger, have yet to grasp: that terrorism is a fruitless quest that solves nothing, that adds nothing except more pain to an already hurting World.

I'm hoping to wake up tomorrow and discover that this was just an evil dream. But before I go to sleep tonight I'm walking the few blocks over to Coney Island Hospital so I can donate a pint of blood. It's the one small thing I can do at this point. Love, Jan Christensen