Sept. 11, 2001: After recovering from his illness in Asia, back in New York Paul watched the WTC come down.

Although I was writing my BootsnAll articles a month or so behind my travels, nothing would have prepared me for the end of my trip – for how fatigued I would get, for an annoying virus, and for what I would return to back in New York. Of course, when it rains it pours. And yet in one sense, I was fortunate in that everything difficult came at the end.

I was so lucky to have been traveling for so long with hardly a hiccup. Although along my journey I had fought more than a little guilt, from wanting to finish my writing a little more quickly, while also wanting to fully enjoy myself, and experience as much as I could, unhindered with too much reflection.

In Koh Phangan, just after the full moon party in August, I caught a bad case of conjunctivitis. I couldn't see out of my left eye for almost two weeks. My right eye was not much better. I finally had to take the 7-hour trip to an eye doctor on the mainland. When I got to Hong Kong, mostly recovered, I was thoroughly exhausted. Rather than do all the exploring I had wanted to do, I ended up going out with friends every night and really enjoying my time with friends, rather than just going to all the tourist sites.

Then it seemed so suddenly that I was on my way to a wedding in New Orleans and back home to New York. When I finally arrived back in New York City on September 9, my hard drive imploded (losing months of email and everything I had been working on), my phones lines didn't work, I lost my mobile phone, an old roommate was trying to sue me for her rental deposit and broker fee, I had a good 2 meters of mail to sift through, plus other particulars of getting organized after being away for 6 months. Then, on Tuesday morning, I watched with a horrible sinking feeling from 10 blocks away as the WTC towers came down in a flash and torrent of debris.

The shock of all of that took me out for several weeks. I was watching CNN every moment of every day. And sleeping a lot. None of my close friends were lost, but I knew a few people I had worked and socialized with who were, and I had many friends who themselves had lost dear friends, and one fiancé, in the disaster. There were pictures and candles out for two people in the building next door. I went to one funeral, and that was enough to be devastated, to see people you knew were so strong to be sobbing, beside themselves with grief. Some of my friends were going to several funerals every week.

Just getting up early and not staying up all night became the hardest thing for me to do. Gradually now, I am getting back to normal, trying to be productive and efficient. And trying to get back into a mood and zone to write and be productive.

So what's it like to be back in NYC? Still a little shell-shocked. But at least it's not so eerily quiet as it was just after the disaster. People are getting on with their lives – but trying to avoid riding the subway. And flinching when there are sirens in the streets, or airplanes in the sky.

Now it's the end of October. Halloween. The leaves are changing. What used to be my favorite season of the year. And I have to get back to writing.

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