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Knocking Down Walls

© Katherine E. Rabenau

I've had a hard time writing this week's column. I was still planning to write about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as it is something many agoraphobics suffer with and because I suspect that many many people all around the world are currently starting to struggle with the symptoms as well. But at this moment in time and in my life, it just feels too clinical to write about that, too detached somehow.

Like many Americans, I'm still numb in some ways. It's not that I'm sitting around feeling sad all day. Lots of good things are happening in my life. Friends back east have found what sounds like a beautiful apartment for me and what seems to be a great used car at an amazing price. I'm slowly organizing my packing and I'm happy about all that. But when I sat down to write this article I couldn't connect to the topic. I think maybe it's because there is so much pain out there that I feel like words are inadequate to the task. I want to go around hugging everyone, to hold their hands and just let them talk to me, maybe just be able to listen.

People need to be able to talk about what has happened. In a media driven society like ours there's too much detached listening and watching. For me, New York City was my home for more than half of my life and I feel drawn to the stories and the film of what's happening there. It will always be my city and the people there will always be my community. Many of my closest friends are still living there. Watching the stories of heroism, seeing the video (over and over) helps me try to comprehend what has happened. It helps me to process the horror. Along with television, there's also lots of reading material being written and circulated. There have been some profound and healing essays written - including many here at Suite101.com (the Black Tuesday Event is an extraordinary collection of essays). The thing that seems to be missing, at least where I am, is that there isn't a lot of talking about what we are feeling. And we need to do some talking. Real talking. Not just jingoistic, patriotic "I love America," stuff. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm feeling extra patriotic myself right now. I've always loved the song America the Beautiful but it has seldom touched me as deeply as in recent days. I love this country. But I think it's more important to love my fellow citizens, to love people. In some ways I think that a lot of the flag waving that's going on is a way of avoiding the pain we are feeling. It lets us pretend that we are feeling tough and powerful. But that's not really what we are feeling. We are feeling hurt and angry and vulnerable and devastatingly sad. And we need to talk about it.

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