By Lori Alexander

I live in Ireland, a country that knows terrorism well.

Sept. 11. In my most paranoid moment, I couldn't have conceived how drastically a 24-hour period could change my feeling of security, and test my beliefs.

My lackadaisical news consumption changed drastically. I no longer reserved newspapers for the leisurely Sunday browse, or watched the 10 p.m. news half asleep. My numb ears were bombarded with the phrases, "they deserved it," "they asked for it," "they're reaping the dragon's teeth." Entry upon entry appeared in Letters to the Editor sections calling Bush a "dimwit" and a "lunatic."

While smarting from the brutality of what I was seeing in the media, it was hard to remember that this was the Irish media, not the Irish people, as a whole. Nor was it even the Irish media as a whole. Were I to base my entire opinion on what the Irish people felt about 9/11 on the majority of the media coverage, I would come away hurt and insulted. And misinformed.

This seemed to be a concept the American media understood immediately, and had begun using wisely.

As a travel writer, I was presented with a unique opportunity. An editor sent me a line that hit home "We need to show the world that it is safe to live and travel abroad." 

Not completely true, but in my case, mostly true. I thought of my responsibility to others far from home, feeling equally vulnerable and alone. I wrote as though Sept. 11 hadn't happened. As though I could still get on an airplane without wondering if my destination would be Sellefield Nuclear Plant, rather than San Francisco.

In the weeks that followed the bombings, and the subsequent anthrax infections, people stopped me on the street to ask if I lost anyone in the attack. Mothers mobbed me at my son's school to make sure we were coping. Again and again I heard the salve, "No right-thinking person would commit such an atrocity."

My US State department warned citizens abroad to lay low when the US bombing of Afghanistan started. So did various expatriate organizations. I followed their instructions for two miserable days, and I hated it. I had not been raised to cower.

When I emerged from my house, it was to join the local school's Parent's Committee. To take my son to Gaelic football practice and talk with the other parents, and the coaches. To shop in our local markets, and chat with the checkers. To remind myself that this is my home now, and I have a role here.

I plan on using my voice to show I am not afraid. I don't whisper my American accent in the street.

I meet their eyes. I plan to keep nodding, and trying to smile.

I plan on using my fingers to get the word out to Americans that we are not alone. That it is still safe to live and travel abroad. That I won't hide as though I am ashamed of my country, or be paralyzed by fear. As a writer, I won't encourage fear in others, either.

(Journalist Lori Alexander, an ex-Californian, now lives near Dublin and contributes regular columns to The Irish American Post about living in Ireland. Alexander can be reached at lalexandervg@eircom.net).