The last time I was this scared was the day Kennedy was shot. The world is changed forever, starting today, and I can only wonder in terror what kind of world we have made for our children.

My irrational reaction has been to furiously dig into cleaning the house. Trying, I guess, to make one little enclave of neat, clean, sane existence. I cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the bedroom, started washing clothes. One thought was that maybe the power would go off all over the country, and we would at least have underwear to wear. And maybe, more than anything, the world needs people who are neat and clean and wear underwear.

All those people going to work in the World Trade Center, grumbling about another day at the office, and now buried beneath the devastation. All our most respected authorities holed up somewhere secret to try to figure out what to do. The Pentagon, the CIA, the UN, all the embassies, everyone important in the scheme of world events and national security is trying to figure out these world events and national security.

My son just called to say his first day of classes at college in Boston was called off. They evacuated the school and sent everyone home. I couldn't even speak for crying so hard, but I told him I loved him. My 20-year-old son who is one of the heirs of this crazy world we have somehow built.

Another irrational reaction was to think about the party I had just sent out invitations to. My e-mail said that we had anniversaries, birthdays, retirements, friendships and the glorious New England Fall to celebrate. My thought now is that we have nothing to celebrate, everything to mourn. My mind keeps dredging up song titles and lyrics that fit the horror that's unfolding. I'm clutching at fragments of known pain already memorialized in music to attempt to explain the unknown pain that is happening in my world. What have they done to my song, Ma?

I'm comforted by the fact that the mailman just delivered our mail, just like on a normal day. God help us.