La Sifflet (The Whistle)

Early on the morning of September 12, 2001, I knocked on Michelle and Mark's hotel room door. They had insisted the night before that I say goodbye before I left Paris, and I had felt the same. I'd been away from home for three months and travelling on my own for only two weeks, when I was met with the cold shoulders and friendly hands of Parisians. For the first time on my travels, I felt scared and out of my depths. But a kind Australian couple took me under their wings and put the confidence back in my travelling feet. If I hadn't already been grateful, I was when Mark gifted me a whistle on the stoop of their vintage room as we said goodbye. It had been an army retirement gift and even though I declined it, he said to keep it on me and use it if I felt unsafe.

So, with a pack half the size of my body and a whistle with the inscription 'Dal', I ventured down the tilting staircase, pleaded with the hotel Madame for a freshly baked croissant and boarded my bus. It was moments later, through the space between head rests, I could see the front page of a newspaper and I learnt that something big had happened. The headline was in French, but I could see the Twin Towers and the fire that split them. I'd stood at the base of the towers just two-weeks earlier.

I really didn't understand the magnitude of what had happened. The weight of the world impact didn't hit me like it did for those at home, watching the coverage in English, but I felt a different impact. People were either drastically kinder or more skeptical. Security was stepped up everywhere. In a time before smart phones, emails of concern flooded my inbox . Payphone's were in heavy use. The world became different; and as a girl on her own in a foreign country, I felt confused by the conflicting messages of life being too short and to have fun. While other messages were saying the world wasn't safe, trust no-one and come home. Fast. But, with a whistle on my hip, sheer ignorance and a determination to stay, I travelled on. That whistle went to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, England, the USA and Canada. That whistle was with me when I met amazing, life-long friends, when I got lost in a Prague night club, when I got lost in the forest, when I jumped out a hostel window, when my luggage got lost, when I had nowhere to sleep, and when I returned home. All the while, it swung from the bag on my hip.

Maybe it acted as a placebo for safety, but that whistle calmed me in my many, many wrong footed adventures, and so Mark and Michelle were always in my thoughts. I'd always planned to return it. But, as emails go, their address expired and I lost contact.  So I pinned the whistle to my wall, then eventually to a collection of 'things'. But I always knew where it was - for 18 years. Every now and then I'd try a search, but I only had Mark's initial and Michelle's maiden name. Just last year, I gave my search another shot. I spotted an extra clue in the one email I had from Michelle. I Added it to my search and three Michelle's later, there she was. With her twin girls, smiling, happy and oblivious to my joy in spotting her face after so many years. I was so grateful to return that whistle. I think the lesson is that something so small, can mean so much. Never underestimate the power of the smallest gift and notice the weight of kind gestures.

September 12, 2001, the world changed for me in two ways.