Please, God, let us wake up

now.

It's a nightmare, right? Airplanes

falling out of the sky, Manhattan in flames, office workers running pell-mell

through the streets, the president being whisked to an undisclosed location,

airports closed nationwide.

Oh, God, it seems so real,

but I know I'll wake up, clammy with sweat, shaking and thirsty.

I need to sort out the images,

the barrage of information that rolled into our lives like clouds of concrete

dust.

Fire equipment, ambulances

­ symbols of rescue and refuge ­ crushed by falling debris,

burnt out, like those you see in pictures from other places.

A guy in a suit and tie guiding

an injured woman, so covered with dust that he was almost indistinguishable

from workers and victims on the street.

A river of pedestrians, evacuating

Manhattan, flowing across the Brooklyn Bridge, and all I can think is,

Gosh, I hope they had tennis shoes with them. I'd hate to think I had

several miles to walk in dress shoes.

Palestinians cheering and flashing

V-for-victory signs like they just won the World Cup.

And I thought it was the end

of the world, a few days ago, when the video card went askew in my computer

case, followed by one thing after another. My desktop not functioning?

What could possibly be worse?

It may well be the end of the

world ­ as we know it. A turning point in history like no other we've

ever experienced on our shores.

Consider the ripple effect

on our common humanity. There is the theory that nearly every person in

this country is connected to every other citizen by only six degrees of

association. For instance, the best friend of the next-door neighbor of

my daughter's kindergarten teacher's nephew would be five degrees from

me. Given the staggering number of casualties in this attack, I doubt

there's anyone in the United States who isn't in some way personally affected.

And then I remember: Last summer

I met the son of a cousin I don't know well. He's career Air Force. Stationed

at the Pentagon.

"We will find and punish

the cowards who did this, and any nation that gave them support."

Like we did the creeps that killed the Marines in their beds in Lebanon?

Like we did the killers of Pan Am 103? Like we did those who bombed our

embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? I want to believe it.

Surely we'll see a tightening

of security measures. Seldom as I fly, I've been struck for the past couple

of years by the nonchalance of airport security personnel. I'm too nervous

a flier to call attention to myself by saying, "You're not even looking

at that X-ray machine. Do your job."

And if that's all the attention

being paid to carry-ons, with security people under constant public scrutiny,

how much less is the inspection of checked bags? A friend who flies a

lot says she did reprimand security personnel who looked at her instead

of her bag, and said, "That's a lovely smile you're wearing today."

Amazing. I've begun finding

that Noo Yawk accent endearing, as I listen to eyewitness accounts of

police, firefighters and other rescue workers. They look so tired. But

that isn't just fatigue; it's frustration, shock, grief.

As a former paramedic who,

like medical workers everywhere, used to curse the volume of paper work

required by legal and billing procedures, I noted no one in the rescue

scenes wielding pens and clipboards.

Posters for missing family

members paper cover every flat surface near the site and the hospitals,

while mothers and brothers and wives go from place to place speaking the

names of loved ones to people paging through lists. You can hear the question

mark. Perhaps a few days of hope will cushion the almost inevitable blow,

when they know.

When did candlelight vigils

and floral shrines and drawn faces become so commonplace in this country?

After three days almost constantly

on the air, Peter Jennings looks exhausted. It's unnerving to see him

beginning to lose his concentration. They've done heroic duty, the news

people.

As have the rescuers. A search-dog

handler sleeps with his German shepherd on the sidewalk.

We've seen efforts like these

before, but in other places, and usually as a result of earthquake. Manhattan

Island quaked last week.

Scenes from abroad: A Russian

woman wiping away tears. Palestinians celebrating as though they'd just

won a soccer match.

Crowds gathering to watch the

popular changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in London. They were

not prepared for what happened there. Neither was I. Even Peter choked.

Tears streamed down the faces of onlookers, Brit and American alike, as

our national anthem rang out. Tears streamed down my face, too.

In America, the flag. That

bright, brave banner of red, white, and blue. Grimy firefighters raise

it above the rubble, and the remembrance of another scene imprinted on

our collective memory hits us viscerally.

Another star-spangled banner

unrolls from the roof of the Pentagon. Then flags begin to bloom all along

the streets where we live.

As we saw those hideous initial

scenes played and replayed and replayed again, we kept hearing two words.

"My God. My God." Those were prayers, not oaths.

My God, it's been more than

a week, and it's real. But there is a higher reality, and for longer.

Forever.

Don't let us forget that.

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