To think that it came through reading was a bit of a joke, at first. Reading had more often taken the sting out of my thoughts, clouded my own ideas with the ones in print. But then I opened Fitzgerald, and there it was upon the page. This was a man whose life eclipsed the tragedy evoked in his novels. Should all our lives become so rich in lesson? If we were to put as much stock in them as we do in other things, we would see that they are.

The city breathes slowly, drawing breath from the suburbs in the morning, exhaling softly from dusk until the wee dark hours before dawn. My apartment block comes to life around five p.m. each evening, as commuters repopulate the northern tip of Manhattan. Though I have witnessed this routine for six weeks, my new environment has only now become real; eighty-year-old subway tracks leading to ninety-year-old subway exits, opening upon hundred-year-old apartment blocks lining hilly streets. Six weeks of blank pages finally come to an end. Awed into silence by my complete incomprehension of the world around me, I now come to grips with my surroundings.

It's not the first time I've had the rug pulled out from under me since arriving here at the beginning of September. I came for a job that fit my skills and talents, and now I plod the sidewalks each day in search of something that will allow me to pay the bills - in installments - and remain somehow independent. I came expecting the excitement and competitive spirit I have always found on my visits to New York. I have found much less.

What happened here in September was a shot to the heart. Left the whole world choking for weeks. That people continued to do their thing was seen as a sign of New Yorkers' resilience, and of a collective triumph over 'evil'. But there are stark differences in the routines, not least the rising sales of canned goods.

America, they say, has lost its innocence. It has also lost its memory. For the fact remains that America - as a power - has been far from innocent, and continues to be just so. But American policy started this problem in the Deep East, and it follows that American policy will finish it.

The dichotomies are plenty, these days, but their price is rising along with all the more tangible commodities. Dichotomies are the currency of dissent and critical analysis, which became instantly precious and rare on September 11.

One very hard truth is the inextricable link between the innocence and ignorance in America's conscience, as if it was one of George W's ridiculous malapropisms: Innocence. Ignorance. They sound they same, sort of. And they may as well be the same, the way we have let him play this one out: was this really an attack on our way of life? It certainly was not meant to cause people to dine in more often, but that is a big piece of the post-September 11 reality. If anything, it should have increased our scrutiny of the ones who draw a salary off of our taxes.

Right now, I'm not sure what anything means: War; Evil; New York. I'm going to have to figure it out for myself. As for Fitzgerald's shining edifice, well… maybe he said it best, after all.