10/16-20/01: REST STOP

I went back to Los Angeles this week to see my family and regroup.  I was not afraid to fly, which surprised me.  I did consider possibilities of death and destruction on the plane upon take off, but I didn’t feel serious anxiety about it.  I had had a flash of panic on the way to the airport, however, of which I am ashamed because it was simply fear-based prejudice. 

I took a car service to the airport, and the driver was a Middle Eastern man wearing a turban.  Now, I have ridden in many cabs with Middle Eastern drivers after September 11 and have listened to their stories of people refusing to ride with them, fearing that they were terrorists.  One cab driver told me, a woman passenger would not tip him because she didn’t want to support terrorist activities.  When they told me these stories, I commiserated with them on people’s misguided tendencies to profile others.

On my way to the airport, however, I had my own flash of racist terror.  So he’s wearing a turban, I tried to reason with myself, he could be Sikh, or even if he is Muslim that doesn’t mean he’s a terrorist.  Get a grip.  By the time we were deep inside the Midtown Tunnel, however, I had worked myself up pretty good with visions of a car bomb planted under my seat exploding.  After all, if he were Al Qaeda, he would not have any reservations about killing himself, let alone me, to take out the tunnel and make some twisted point.

But I made it to JFK and then to LA without incident.  In Los Angeles I saw many friends and a lot of family.  I took my photo album of the attack and showed it to practically every person I talked to.  I even showed the pictures to a stranger in a parking lot.  I had some more pictures developed at the Fromex in Pasadena, and the man who owns the store was completely freaked out by them.  He kept saying, “You took these??”

My mother had a little party and invited my cousins, aunts and uncles and some friends.  I recounted my experiences and showed them my photo album.  My brother and I visited Aunt Joy, still recovering from her heart attack, in a recovery home.  She was as sweet as ever.  It was hard to see her so sick.  (No, I didn’t show her the pictures.) 

Although I could feel that I was still in shock and not fully myself yet, it was finally feeling good to be alive again.

I saw my mother’s doctor while I was in Pasadena for a check up.  I was still concerned about the dizziness I had had the prior week and wanted to have blood tests done to rule out contamination by toxic elements I had been breathing near the WTC.  I showed the doctor my photo album, too, and told her my story.  She prescribed sleeping pills and Xanax and suggested I talk to a therapist.