For at least three years after September 11th, I felt anxious every time I rode on the subway. The first two years after the attacks were the worst. When the train went through the tunnels, I was in suspended animation until we arrived at a station. Then I’d go back into fear mode, holding my breath until we arrived at the next station.

It had something to do with feeling claustrophobic and thinking too much about being stuck underground with a a car full of desperate people. The thought of being blown up was definitely more than I could bear. But I did worry about never seeing my family again.

On numerous occasions I got off the train I was on. One time I jumped off at Bergen Street because there was a police investigation going on there. During the Anthrax scare, a train I was on crawled slowly from Christopher Street to Houston. When we got to Houston I said to the person I was with, "That’s it. I’m not staying on this train."

The subway is, in some ways, the epicenter of our New York lives. It’s terrible to fear the most expedient, democratic and inexpensive form of transportation. We New Yorkers spend a great deal of time underground. It’s like being afraid of your own living room.

I ended up spending way too much on taxis and car services. I avoided going into the city and developed what I would call a form of agoraphobia, the fear of leaving Brooklyn. I really let my fear get to me: I indulged it, I gave into it at every turn. And when you indulge a fear it gets worse and worse. The best way to overcome a phobia is to do the very thing you fear.

For some irrational reason, I felt the safest on the F Train and the most unsafe on the 2 or 3. I couldn’t bear those small stations between Wall Street and Chambers Street. And on the 4 and 5 train, bypassing the World Trade Center station was so eery, so spooky, so strange.

I felt most at risk in Manhattan. When the subway got to Brooklyn I often found myself  beginning to relax. And when the train got to Seventh Avenue, I felt a kind of elation; a sense that I had, once again, survived the worst.

But that’s no way to live. As the years passed, the fear started to lift. A meditation practice,  which I began in July of 2002, was a big help. Meditation is a wonderful way to relax your body and calm you thinking. It’s my secret weapon against anxiety: I use it on airplanes and and in the dentist chair. I use it to get through the scary moments in my life. Breath in, breath out, I feel myself in the present moment.

Eventually, my fear of the subway susided. I was able to ride on the subway now without thinking of dying in a terrorist attack. Amazing. I can read a book or a magazine, stare into space, people-watch, or just fall asleep on the subway again just like I used to.

The subway is a form of transportation not a death machine.

And then came July 7th. The recent attacks in London (and before that, Madrid) confirmed my worst fears: subway and trains were a natural terrorist target. And yet, I don’t find my fear returning. In fact, the day of the London bombing, I took the subway into Manhattan without worry – I read Paul Auster’s NEW YORK TRILOGY and didn’t think once about dying. I did feel a great deal for those Londoners who, on the way to work one Thursday morning, were blasted to their deaths. It was a public and personal tragedy.

On a rational level, I know that New York’s time will come and I dread it with every fiber of my being but I don’t think I will return to my Brookly agoraphobia, my avoidance of subway trains and Manhattan.

I just can’t bear to live that way anymore. Using meditation is not a way to avoid the sick realities of the world we live in. It just a way to help keep our spirits alive during these terrible times.

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
Breathing in, I notice that my in-breath has become deeper.
Breathing out, I notice that my out-breath has become slower
Breathing in, I calm myself
Breathing out, I feel ease.
Breathing in, I smile.
Breathing out, I release.
Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment.
Breathing out, I feel it is a wonderful moment.

-Thich Nhat Hanh