What Comes Next?

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If you are trying to find your way back, it doesn't help to have to pass armed guards with grenades strapped to their chests at Boston's Logan airport, or to hear that there are generals authorized to shoot a passenger jet out of the sky should they conclude that it poses a threat. The metal detectors are so sensitive that an underwire bra will trip them. So will a candy wrapper. Yet a federal marshal was able to slip through with a buck knife in his pocket. Thus many passengers, returning to the skies last week, resorted to their own incantations: It's never been safer to fly. Lightning doesn't strike twice. If I stay home, they win.

Tragedy has frisked us all. We are finding out what we are carrying around that no one knew we had. Maybe normal is not a useful word for now, too slippery and glib. Maybe transcendence for the moment lies with routine, doing the same things as before, even if we do them differently, with a heavier heart or a lighter touch or a glance over our shoulder. The rescue workers keep saying that they are just doing their jobs. And so they invite us to do the same.