I am still anxious, damnit! There are days when I hear the roar of an airplane overhead; I look up...waiting, waiting to see if it will explode. I find myself plotting in my mind escape routes, just in case, debris from an exploded plane should rain down upon me. I find there are times when I’m teaching my students when I am suddenly anxious. I don’t have what they have--a certain imperturbability.  

In the time immediately after September 11th, I was angry. My anger hid a deeper pain. The pain that came from contemplating the staggering loss of life that had just occurred. And more to the point, how people could decide to come together to be a part of something so horrible. My only hope, my self-defense was to harden my heart. It is a strange thing when the heart hardens; there is a physiological thing that happens.  

I don’t know if I was tired of crying or if my tears just dried up. The areas around my eyes were extremely taunt; I developed a “not exactly here” stare. I hardly slept. As anyone who hasn’t sleep for a prolonged period of time can tell you, grouchy doesn’t begin to cover what you really become. I read once, that prolonged sleeplessness increases the amount of adrenaline in the body; it makes you hostile. I was hostile. I couldn’t sleep without thinking about the Trade Center, or the Pentagon or the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field.  

I became hell-bent on survival. I didn’t go into public buildings without making a mental note on the exits; I scrutinized everyone that I saw. On my occasional visits to New York’s Pennsylvania Station, I thought the armed National Guardsmen seemed too relaxed for my tastes.  

Here we are, eight months later. I sleep a little better. My students detachment has revealed itself to be exhaustion from September 11th overload. I still watch the planes as they fly overhead. I still examine people and their packages as I enter and leave a building.  

I have made my peace with my new state of awareness. When I ride the Long Island Railroad toward the city, I feel less of an ache when I look to where the World Trade Center used to stand. I still ache. It’s been said when you face a traumatic experience, you always get better, but you never get well. I wonder if that’s how it will be with for me, for America: always getting better, but never quite well.  

Author's Biography

L. David Ryals is a New York writer, poet, and teacher--and Seven Seas' voluntary essay reviewer.

He holds a BA in Writing and Literature and an MFA in English and Writing from Long Island University.

E-mail David at ldavidryals@yahoo.com

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