Winding down toward a decision.

There is a campaign going on, at least in New York, to force a re-opening of the 9/11 Commission. The question being asked is this: why did the buildings fall down as if they had been dynamited? Particularly Building Number 7, which fell toward the end of the day and had not been hit by a plane. Far from receding into our past, 9/11 retains its place at the center of American life in the 21st Century.

Finishing an appointment about a mile from the Battery Park apartment I decided to walk home. As I strolled down Broadway, I let my mind wander over the week - the last before the election, one in which New York is being bombarded with commercials that deal with the political campaign but also deal with the deep feelings this town has about 9/11.

We have all heard the multiple and strident references to 9/11 from both sides of this current election [though my personal feeling is that the Bush/Cheney team has been a bit more strident than Kerry/Edwards but that may be only that I have been bombarded in my e-mail with a cleverly edited video stream trailer of bits from the Republican Convention that is nothing but quick cuts of 9/11 references at that event].

That day has affected our lives in ways that none of us really imagined as the event was unfolding.

It did not occur to me that I would need to check in on my friend Joe Eros, with whom I have an avuncular relationship, to make sure he was actually being released from the army. It never occurred to me that he would be IN the army that day but that was his response to 9/11: he stood up to serve. But I don't think it occurred to him or me that he might be serving in Iraq.

Not much of the world in which I find myself living as I face the 2004 election is a world that I imagined the night of 9/11.

But 9/11 was a watershed moment in ways that we did not imagine that particular day.

Walking through the streets of New York, walking past the brightly lit "hole" where once the Trade Towers stood, I thought about how I feel this is a watershed election for us. Bitterly contested, agonizingly personal, with invective being piercingly and constantly tossed about, this election is the most polarizing election I have experienced in my lifetime.

There have been bitter ones before and ones that have resulted in contempt from one side or the other but never one that seemed as fractious as this.

Which had me wondering: how will we heal afterwards? How will we cope if we have a repeat of 2000 with the election hanging like the famous chads for days or weeks? How will we respond if this becomes an election that is decided in the courts?

So tight is this contest that the above scenarios seem more likely than not and I am almost as worried about that as I am about the election itself. Democracy is a fragile thing and always has been. A recent commentary pointed out that no democracy in history has lasted more than two hundred years and we're beyond that point. Can we hold our democracy together against the backdrop of fear, terror, war?

Can we survive a suspicion, widespread or not, that there was something "rotten in Denmark" about the election of our highest official more than once?

I commented to a friend that the Roman Empire reached its apogee with its conquest of Mesopotamia and then began its long decline.

It is my hope and prayer that our democracy does not get lost in the Mesopotamian sands as did Rome's Imperial dreams as it is my hope that our democracy does not slip away from us as did Rome's in its Imperial quest.