My trip back to the United States began much like all such trips do, except for one thing: fear of flying.

I've really come to hate flying long distances in my older age. I don't really know why. When I was a kid I loved flying, but since I got older - especially when I became a globe-trotter - the prospect of spending a long time in an airplane's given me the willies. I'm white-knuckled at takeoff, extremely leery of turbulence, and, when landing, only able to breathe when all the wheels are on the ground and the thing's stopped shaking from side to side like a well-kicked bowl of Jell-O.

Confident flier I am not. Horus could get rich charging me a nickel for every time I asked Him to get me up, across and down in one piece. And if my bank statements have any true basis in reality, I think He already has...

So this time, while we made ready to go, I was pleasantly surprised to not detect the usual willies building up in my system. The sight of the airport did not make my stomach wobble, nor did the sound of airplanes make me close my eyes and shudder. Running the last minute errands - tickets, prepayments, traveler's cheques, cats, rental car bookings, etc. - was a pain, but was not punctuated by moments of terrible doubt. And damn if I wasn't cool as a cucumber the whole time we were in the Dubai airport, waiting to get on the plane.

When you live with something for so long, its sudden, illogical absence tends to throw you for a loop, and I was looping, all right. This was not normal for me. Don't get me wrong - I liked the change - but I was really wracking my brain to figure out what had brought it around. What could have happened?

Yes, my head cold had messed up my physical responses, but surely the layover in Heathrow should have cured me of that, leaving me a wreck in time for the trip to Chicago. And, yes, this time I forced myself to stay awake all day Thursday so I'd be tired enough to get some sleep on the plane. But even before Thursday, the fear was not to be found.

I remembered the trip my wife and I made to Hong Kong, back in January, and realized that the fear wasn't there, then, either. It was a rough couple of days ahead of time, getting everything ready to go on a few days' notice, and that made me less aware that the fear had melted away. But on both the flight over and back, I was just fine.

That time, I chalked it up to Emirates airlines' forward and down cameras, which showed you just where the plane was going and what was underneath. But this time, we got no such luxury. So where was the fear? Where had it gone? What had changed?

Then it hit me: September 11th.

Sitting there, watching planes crash into the towers on CNN, something inside my head must have been turned off by stark reality. All those years I'd had a dull, horrid fear of the unknown while flying: fears of crashing, losing control, depressurization - the whole litany of Things That Could Go Wrong at 40,000 Feet. All those years I'd lived in terror at what I couldn't predict, but felt might happen at any moment.

And then I saw the worst possible thing in the world that could happen to a plane happen right in front of my eyes. Any concerns I might have had about my own, personal safety seemed silly and trivial in comparison. I didn't need to imagine hell, anymore - there it was, gift-wrapped by Osama bin Laden.

So I was cured... but also faced with a paradox: suddenly, I have a number of people I hope are roasting in their own version of Hell to thank for making me a less nervous flier. In spite of their earnest attempts to engineer the reverse, I seem to have been subconsciously de-aerophobed by Al-Qaeda. That's like thanking the Nazi party for making you a more tolerant individual.

But that was my sea change, and it truly was a change for the better. But it left me wondering what else had changed, and how much of it truly was for the better?

I can hear the peanut gallery now, asking if I'd been living in a cave since last September. Hopefully, anyone who's been reading my columns for any length of time would know that I haven't. Yes, I've read and heard about all these changes that took place from September 11th onwards. Who hasn't?

But I didn't see them happen with my own eyes. I wasn't there on my native soil the day She was attacked. You can surf the net for hours, watch the idiot box for days and read every piece of print on the subject you can, but nothing's as good as actually being there. History happened while I was an ocean away, and while I really wish it hadn't happened at all, the fact is that it did... and I wasn't there to feel it.

And anyone who knows me can tell you this for free: I really hate missing out on anything, because that means I miss out on both the feelings and the stories they create.

Feelings: it isn't enough for me to get the facts on something. Facts are important, but sometimes they fail us. I need more than that. I need to walk around in the place and get the feel of it. I need to let myself be picked up and carried by the thoughts and feelings of those around me. I need to put a face on what happened to who, where, when and why, or it's just gray copy on a page at the breakfast table.

Stories: absolutely. I hate missing out on a good one. What are we if not a lifetime's collection of them? They make the world go around as surely as money, gravity and little green elves named Fennel, they do. And where would we be without them...?

So I decided that, while I was on vacation back in the states, I'd feel those feelings and hear those stories for myself, and put down my own. What had changed since 9/11? What had stayed the same? What was new, or old, or indifferent? What's it like to come home after missing such a terrible thing? And what will it mean to leave it, this time...?

That's what this series will be all about - kudos if you remember where the title came from. It might be a weird experiment in cultural anthropology, or it might just be me taking the path of least resistance while trying to meet deadlines. It could get me some dumb award, somewhere, too, if I play my cards right.

But here I am, America - coming home to hear you talk, again. All ears, as always.

Speak and be heard...

"We later discovered that all of his best-selling "thoughts" had been composed by an experimental monkey named Stephen, which lived in chronic pain and liked to take out its grief on a handy keyboard."

The Invisibles: "And We're All Policemen"- Grant Morrison