The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -- now 70 years old -- contended the language we learn and speak impacts our conceptualization, our understanding of the world. And 30 years ago, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argued that the "metaphors we live by" do a similar thing, shaping our perceptions, our expectations.

9 years ago yesterday... well, however I narrate the events from September 11, it's clear that the stories we tell about what happened that day are shaped by our national political cultural religious consciousness. And the stories we tell shape our consciousness in turn.

Stories are, after all, how we make meaning of the world. They are how we share meaning.

I'm neither a cognitive scientist nor a clinical psychologist, but I have been thinking a lot lately about the stories we tell around trauma -- our trauma, both private and communal. I think of September 11. I think of August 29. I think of Hurricane Katrina. I think of Anthony's death.

I think of the stories I've told about cancer, about death, about widowhood. The ones I tell about my strength, my survival.

I choose carefully now the stories that I tell, the metaphors I invoke, the words I write. I have let go of some stories so that I can tell new ones.

Anniversaries tend to resurface and crystallize memories of trauma, and the stories we tell around anniversaries can be painful, difficult, dangerous. I think, sometimes we simply retell and we don't reflect. Sometimes we forget that we are the masters of the stories, and that we can reshape the plot, the meaning. We can recast characters. And we can let go of tragic endings.