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09/14/01 It's after 2 AM and I can't sleep. I think I am officially traumatized. I have a deep empathy for everyone who has suffered a loss, and it hurts me so deeply that I am having trouble coming out of it. The guy who runs the deli around the corner from my house - The Deli of Life, as it is called - was near the WTC when it happened. He has another deli there, and he was working. He saw everything, and he survived. He lost his business, but he survived, and he is grateful. But he is completely traumatized. He's worried, he told me tonight, that he will suffer more because he is an Arab. He thinks that people will attack him. He wants people to know that he was there, too, that he went through what everyone else did. That he saw the second plane right in front of him. That he lost his business. That he is as upset as everyone else. I recognized genuine fear in his eyes. "It's unfortunate that anyone would blame you," I said. "Because...we all live here." "Yes, yes. I know." he said. I am worried about him right now. I want to go guard his store. I want to protect him from anyone who would attack him. I am frightened of the people who will misplace their anger. Rather than volunteer their time at, say, a hospital, they will instead choose to assault someone who because of their skin color, because of their country of birth. I am worried that this city will become a place I will not want to live. I was stretching and turning in bed. I heard the rain began to fall. I opened my window for the first time in days, glad for the clean, crisp air, free from that awful smell of burnt plastic. I thought about how the rain would prevent rescue workers from finding any survivors beneath the rubble at the World Trade Center. I worried about everyone I knew in an instant. And then I began to pray. This too, shall pass.
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