Not Ready for the Return to ‘Normal’

In Los Angeles for days now, it has been hard to know just what to do. The weekend pulled us out of our office cocoons, away from our living rooms as we began to get on with it--going to the grocery store, having dinner with friends, taking our children to their birthday parties, attending church.

But none of these normal activities felt very normal. People across the nation, across the world, longed to help, to carry buckets, to comfort the wounded, the grieving.

Here in Los Angeles, that longing was especially keen. When it comes to disaster, Angelenos know the drill. But we’re used to receiving the phone calls, the emergency rescue teams, the disaster relief. Watching from thousands of miles away is very difficult. Even the weekend’s lovely weather seemed somehow inappropriate. “Such a beautiful day,” said one woman emerging from morning Mass on Sunday. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

Later that day, in front of the carousel in Griffith Park, hundreds sat in hours-long vigil while yards away the playground brimmed with noise and life. Amid the smoking grills and squabbles over sand toys, a young couple sat on a bench, the girl staring straight ahead, occasionally lifting a hand to wipe at tears, sliding down her face. Her boyfriend, his arm over her shoulders, watched in silence.

For a moment, it seemed a standard romantic tiff. But then she spoke. “All those people,” she said while he watched only her face. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Such scenes of contrast, of conflict between emotion and action, went on all around the city, go on still. On a weekend evening, the tables in front of the storefront restaurants in Glendale were full, though people spoke in lowered tones, and it was difficult to find laughter, even among the high school girls, heads bent over cell phones.

Conversations were easy to overhear--at one table a woman complained about a co-worker who was already making jokes about terrorists. “What she was saying was quite witty,” the woman said, “and I know why she’s doing it, but I finally had to tell her it’s just too soon. I can’t hear this now.” When a street musician began playing “America, the Beautiful,” slowly, imperfectly, on the saxophone, many put down their spoons and forks and wept or prayed or simply tried to swallow.

On Larchmont Boulevard, cafes were also full, and laughter occasionally rose from tables, from passersby. But chance meetings--friends spying each other on the sidewalk--were strangely emotional. “How are you?” people asked each other, women embracing, men clutching each others’ hands, the words much more than an empty salutation.

When a waiter ignited a flambe dish, the swoosh of flames caused people four tables away to flinch and gasp; several rose slightly in their seats. “That was the last thing I needed to see in this moment,” a woman said.

Yet, in joining friends at dinner or taking the kids to the mall, many people hoped to send a message as vivid as the thousands of flags that hang from porches and car antennae--that this country will not be stopped in its tracks. At least not for long.

“I feel funny about going shopping for birthday presents, going to the mall,” says a government lawyer. “But children are having birthdays, and that’s important. And if we all stay home being fearful or depressed, then they’ve won, haven’t they?”

As difficult as it may seem, going about our daily routines is perhaps the most significant thing we can do, says Roy Baumeister, a psychologist, professor at Case Western Reserve University and author of “Evil: Inside Human Violence.” “We should make a point of going out, of living our lives,” said Baumeister. “Give blood, give money, but we can’t allow their actions to change the way our country works.”

Jim Rice, a financial executive for an L.A. computer company, has two brothers in New York’s fire department. Despite being worried and distracted, he did not miss a day of work last week. Being at work helped, he said, at least a little. When a friend’s birthday party was scaled down from a night out at a karaoke bar to a quiet dinner Thursday, he went, though he felt torn. “I wanted to celebrate his birthday, but it feels very strange to be out at a restaurant,” he said.

His brothers, who were off-duty during the attack, are working in the rescue efforts. One, Gerald, is scheduled to get married Sunday, and the bride is worrying about how family and friends will get to New York, about reception logistics, rather than what symbol--hope amid chaos, the unquenchable nature of life--her wedding might provide. Which is, after all, exactly what a bride should be doing. Even now. Especially now.