Imagine (if you will) waking up before your alarm radio goes off, and puttering about doing some very pleasant things for a bit. Then your alarm radio wakes up too, filled with news of a terrible, terrible happening in one of the biggest cities in your country. Only, you're not in your country. You are literally halfway around the world, not simply on the other side but also in the other hemisphere. You are a stranger in a strange land, a place wonderful and welcoming, awesome and friendly. Just... not home.
It is a place so far from home that, due to a convention reached in years past by whatever the powers that be were then, today is tomorrow back home, where and when the terrible thing is happening.
I don't need to imagine. This is a memory, a part of my reality. For me, because my wife and I were in Dunedin, New Zealand, those nearly 4,000 people lost their lives today, when today was September 12, 2001.
contemplative