It's very difficult to know what's right at the moment. I mean, do we all return to our day-to-day lives now? It hasn't truly sunk in yet, but I think the answer is no. The events of the past week are a once-in-a-generation thing. When we're old, we'll look back on last week as the moment that defined our generation. Things aren't going back to normal. Sooner or later, that reality will take root, and so much of what preoccupied us before September 11 will remain as unimportant as it seems to us right now in the immediate aftermath.

But we're not there yet. At the moment, we're probably slowly drifting back to our normal lives. At work on Friday, we all met in the kitchen just before noon for a moment of silence. Sue, the district sales manager, had gone overboard with the decor; red and blue bunting everywhere, both on the walls and hanging from the ceiling, and even patriotric slogans in gold lettering on the door. It was excessive, to my mind; patriotism is about actions, not about a demonstration of symbols. But I suppose it was her way of dealing with her feelings.

After she'd led us through a tearful prayer, where we held our neighbors' hands in an uncomfortable, unusally familiar grip, we all trooped downstairs to Kearney Street, close to noon, so that we could hear the church bells toll. None tolled. Traffic didn't even stop, and there were few other offices out on the street following the same idea. I think San Francisco isn't big on ostentatious displays of patriotism. You are beginning to see flags cropping up on cars and building-sites, but not in the profusion you're probably seeing in your own cities and towns.

Finally, I talked to Brett this afternoon, and felt such an ease with him. Here, I had no qualms about what was the right thing to do, how the right way to behave. We joked, and planned our usual Saturday evening movie. Later I called my Dad for the first time since it happened. Strangely enough, I came the closest to openly expressing emotion about it with my Dad. We're both good British stoics, but we both had catches in our voices as we shared our own respective experiences. He told me about how profoundly affected the British have been. Even today, he said, when he went to the supermarket, just glum faces everywhere. (I'm tempted to say that that sounds no different than normal British behavior.)

Everybody deals with this in their own way. Cecilia tells me she's barely slept all week. Others have been frequently tearful. For me, I still haven't truly wrapped my mind about it. What I have been doing, though, is spending a lot of time thinking about what I'd do if I was President. George, are you listening, I have some ideas?