Updated as available from Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA

Permission is granted to copy, forward or quote with attribution in whole or in part

For video and other information, please click here .

Please feel free to send comments to Kim.

8:00 p.m., Sunday, September 30, 2001

Thunder rumbled outside the window, and I jumped. I ran to the window, searching the skies, inspecting the tall buildings surrounding me. Even when I saw that everything was all right, the feeling provided little relief. The same reaction occurred when a man rolling a suitcase behind me hit its wheels in a gap in the concrete pavement. The suitcase fell. I leaped.

I do not enjoy being alone any more, much preferring the company of others to the solitude of my home. Instead of working from home, as normal, I now wander into the office before everyone else and stay late, until the last of the workers decides to leave.

Nightmares continue to plague me: scenes of what victims on the airliners must have encountered, looking through a window of the World Trade Center only to witness a 767 flying directly at me, jumping from a flame-engulfed window, a terrorist killing me in my sleep. Before I go to bed, I carefully lock every bolt, every window. These trivial actions would have no impact in the event of an attack, but they are at least some measure of psychological control in my erratic, emotionally wobbly life.

I have been concerned that my roller-coaster sensitivities are a bit abnormal, as I've watched uptowners resume regular activity. Downtowners, however, still break into tears, still wander past the emptiness with watery stares, still laugh one moment and shudder the next. Go to work, make some jokes, work hard, then turn the conversation to the inevitable. Strong people, those who ostensibly deal with every adversity logically and rationally, fall apart in private, and those of us who fluctuate tend to be strong for them. Overall, I am doing better than most. We feel guilty when we enjoy life again, simultaneously finding life more difficult to enjoy, at a time when life should be our greatest gift. I am just another off-balance observer who blends in, waiting patiently to feel wholly sane again.

Will there ever be a time, I wonder, even after stability returns, when normal occurrences, normal sounds and noises, will blend into the background as they once did? When a siren won't hold special significance -- of life or of death -- when I hear it pass? When I will laugh without feeling self-conscious about having allowed myself to have forgotten about the tragedy for a few minutes?

More stories are being shared now, many of them tragic, some of them relief-giving, nearly all of them incredible. One acquaintance recently told me of his wife, who on September 11 landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport outside of New York City, only to be told to grab her luggage and get as far away from the airport as possible. She hastily acquired her luggage and then searched for transportation home. No taxis, no buses, no cars for hire. She, dragging her rolling suitcase and carrying her garment bag, walked along the highway to her home ... a 20-mile walk. To add insult to injury, her home in Battery Park City had been evacuated and locked down by police. These were the first moments when she felt like a refugee. I wonder, will she ever land at an airport and not wonder how she will get home and if so, if she can do so safely?

This tragedy has impacted us all, probably for the rest of our lives. Even as we return to work or school or our other daily activities, we carry the horror with us. At a time when the mayor and the media encourage us to rejoin the living, they counter their encouragement with news of additional impending attacks and reports of how the rest of the world hates the U.S. It is difficult, to say the least, not to think of the frightening negatives as we attempt to engage in the business of living again. And to wonder, why, world, do you hate us so much? It is not the fault of the secretaries, janitors, and accountants in the World Trade Center that our government made bad decisions in the past. It is not the fault of the children who were riding the subway under the Twin Towers that U.S. policy harms your country. It is not the fault of the American people that our government tells us that we are protecting the world when you see our government as destroying it. We, like you, just want to live our daily lives, find some happiness, be with our families. We, like you, have our beliefs that we hold dear and understand that you have yours, as well. If you hate our government, tell our people your side of the story. In the U.S., the people can vote against our government, and if we are aware that they do not uphold our values internationally, we will stop them with votes, not violence. If you hate our government, attack our government with words. But do not kill our husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, and grandparents. They can't do anything to fix the problem if they're dead. And the rest of us can't do anything to help you if you breed in us hatred and fear.