We stand with our faces pressed against a chain-link fence, gazing into the abyss. People shift from one foot to the other. A man sighs heavily. The only other sound is the bleeping and rumbling of the few trucks still working where the towers fell.

        I thought I would hate returning to this place, the gaping hole that has become New York's No. 1 tourist attraction. Instead I am enthralled. One hundred strangers are observing an impromptu, genuine moment of silence.

        This is not gawking. It is contemplation.

Transformation

        I was here last Sept. 11, on vacation with my mother.

        I interviewed survivors, would-be rescuers, construction workers retrieving pieces of people. National Guardsmen had sealed off downtown, but I made my way to Stuyvesant High School, which had been turned into a staging area two blocks from the rubble.

        There I saw firemen sleeping upright, search dogs getting massages, volunteers lined up in the rain, psychiatrists helping a man on the verge of tears. I lurked in the building for hours, covertly taking notes.

        Nearly one year later, the transformation is stunning. Now I can see tiny gardens around Stuyvesant and a bike path flanking its side. People are skating and shooting hoops. The sky is very blue.

        A block away is St. Paul's Chapel, whose fence is still draped with memorials and missing posters. Vendors line the sidewalks, hawking T-shirts and snow globes commemorating the attacks.

        On this day, the Friday before Sept. 11, visitors to Ground Zero include a blind man, two young Austrians, a Swedish newscaster, Chinese journalists and a pair of American nuns.

        Walking to the fence, we pass a bucket of dirt and gravel labeled “The Ground of Heroes” with a handwritten sign. People stop to have their pictures taken next to it.

        Somehow, New York today will hold all of this in balance — the tacky, the reverent, the beautiful, the everyday. The city as a whole has returned to its vibrant self, but tucked here and there are moving tributes to what was lost.

        A wall of missing posters has been left intact inside Grand Central Station. On Times Square, late-night revelers pass a police station that still displays messages from schoolchildren: “Thank you for working for are country. You have been very kind to us. It must be hard.”

Following memories

        I have been suppressing my memories of that week. Now I see that I must take them out once in a while, let them lead me towards greater compassion.

        At Ground Zero, one of the Chinese newsmen put me on camera, asking whether we Americans would ever regain our confidence. I fumbled for an answer when I should have made a sweeping gesture to New York.

        The next day, skywriting appeared over Central Park. This message melted into the clouds:

        Dream bigger

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