LIFE WAS ALMOST back to normal in my Brooklyn neighborhood the week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But

Life is returning to normal in my Brooklyn neighborhood a week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But normalcy means something different now, of course.

It means Katya, my four-year-old, looking up at me and saying matter-of-factly, “If two big, sticky blocks fell on me, I would die, Mommy.” It means neighbors whom I haven’t seen since before Sept. 11–and who know I work in Manhattan–rushing up and embracing me, gushing softly, “So glad you are okay.”

It means the routine subway ride on the F Train across the Manhattan Bridge into our city has become a ghastly viewing. The once-magnificent view of the Twin Towers, coming into sight just beyond the elegant arcs of the Brooklyn Bridge, heralding home and every dream possible to attain–is now a mass graveyard. The subway car is perfectly silent as we strain to see. Suddenly, the big, dark gap where the towers were appears, angrily spewing smoke. Then, it passes from view like a silent newsreel. Faces in the subway are serious and still.

But normal now also means we are re-acquainting ourselves with a kind of civility more natural to folks in a village than in the teeming, diverse borough of Brooklyn. It goes beyond extraordinary helpfulness–holding shop doors, insisting others step ahead of one in line, carrying packages for elderly neighbors. All this occurs, but there’s an underlying sense now that in our fear and sorrow for the lost, we’re all in this together.

New Yorkers always expert at avoiding eye contact, now gently search one another’s faces, concern evident. So many are missing, anyone you pass could be deeply grieving.

Others grin spontaneously as they lay eyes on my two daughters, as though thinking, “Wow, kids bickering and skipping rope, some things haven’t changed.”

Last Friday, we all stopped in our tracks wonderingly, faces heavenward, when the first fighter jets shattered the afternoon quiet patrolling the airspace for the president’s visit. They were very high and a couple did dips and waves with their wings.

Knots of folks gathered on corners the other night, too, when a helicopter idled by my back window and shone a high-beam spotlight on one brownstone roof after another. Could a terrorist be on my roof? I locked my windows, and watched, mesmerized with the others.

Some things are easier than others to figure out. My kitchen window frames what was once the World Trade Center. For the first few days I was shocked anew each time I glanced that way and saw that the towers were not there. Now as I stare at lower Manhattan, the smoke still rises, and chillingly a commuter jet flies through it. A visiting friend hugged me and said in a practical tone, “That’s terrible. Get curtains.”

The neighborhood is dotted with handmade flyers on which missing loved ones have been color-xeroxed. Their height, weight and clothing the day of their disappearance are listed. Earnestly included is the floor they were on and a plea for information. Impossible to look at; impossible to look away.

Our local firefighters were among the first to reach the disaster. Twelve out of 30 from Squad 1 haven’t returned. A massive collection effort is underway for their families. Flowers, candles and cards pile up outside the firehouse.

On Friday night, we honored them at the candlelight vigil. I went with my sister, her family and my girls. So many hundreds assembled at the gathering place, we stood for an hour before the crowds allowed us to begin the slow, five-block march to the firehouse.

Many paid their respects to firefighters standing by their truck along the route. They hugged them and some people cried. Every block or so a spontaneous cheer went up and candles were raised to the sky. Police helicopters circled.

“Why are we raising our candles?” I asked my nine-year-old, Amalia.

“Because when we do that we look like the Statue of Liberty,” she said.

In this manner, we make our way.

Life is returning to normal in my Brooklyn neighborhood a week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But normalcy means something different now, of course.

It means Katya, my four-year-old, looking up at me and saying matter-of-factly, “If two big, sticky blocks fell on me, I would die, Mommy.” It means neighbors whom I haven’t seen since before Sept. 11–and who know I work in Manhattan–rushing up and embracing me, gushing softly, “So glad you are okay.”

It means the routine subway ride on the F Train across the Manhattan Bridge into our city has become a ghastly viewing. The once-magnificent view of the Twin Towers, coming into sight just beyond the elegant arcs of the Brooklyn Bridge, heralding home and every dream possible to attain–is now a mass graveyard. The subway car is perfectly silent as we strain to see. Suddenly, the big, dark gap where the towers were appears, angrily spewing smoke. Then, it passes from view like a silent newsreel. Faces in the subway are serious and still.

But normal now also means we are re-acquainting ourselves with a kind of civility more natural to folks in a village than in the teeming, diverse borough of Brooklyn. It goes beyond extraordinary helpfulness–holding shop doors, insisting others step ahead of one in line, carrying packages for elderly neighbors. All this occurs, but there’s an underlying sense now that in our fear and sorrow for the lost, we’re all in this together.

New Yorkers always expert at avoiding eye contact, now gently search one another’s faces, concern evident. So many are missing, anyone you pass could be deeply grieving.

Others grin spontaneously as they lay eyes on my two daughters, as though thinking, “Wow, kids bickering and skipping rope, some things haven’t changed.”

Last Friday, we all stopped in our tracks wonderingly, faces heavenward, when the first fighter jets shattered the afternoon quiet patrolling the airspace for the president’s visit. They were very high and a couple did dips and waves with their wings.

Knots of folks gathered on corners the other night, too, when a helicopter idled by my back window and shone a high-beam spotlight on one brownstone roof after another. Could a terrorist be on my roof? I locked my windows, and watched, mesmerized with the others.

Some things are easier than others to figure out. My kitchen window frames what was once the World Trade Center. For the first few days I was shocked anew each time I glanced that way and saw that the towers were not there. Now as I stare at lower Manhattan, the smoke still rises, and chillingly a commuter jet flies through it. A visiting friend hugged me and said in a practical tone, “That’s terrible. Get curtains.”

The neighborhood is dotted with handmade flyers on which missing loved ones have been color-xeroxed. Their height, weight and clothing the day of their disappearance are listed. Earnestly included is the floor they were on and a plea for information. Impossible to look at; impossible to look away.

Our local firefighters were among the first to reach the disaster. Twelve out of 30 from Squad 1 haven’t returned. A massive collection effort is underway for their families. Flowers, candles and cards pile up outside the firehouse.

On Friday night, we honored them at the candlelight vigil. I went with my sister, her family and my girls. So many hundreds assembled at the gathering place, we stood for an hour before the crowds allowed us to begin the slow, five-block march to the firehouse.

Many paid their respects to firefighters standing by their truck along the route. They hugged them and some people cried. Every block or so a spontaneous cheer went up and candles were raised to the sky. Police helicopters circled.

“Why are we raising our candles?” I asked my nine-year-old, Amalia.

“Because when we do that we look like the Statue of Liberty,” she said.

In this manner, we make our way.