Some people deal with stress, tragedy, heart-aches, loss of loved ones, job misery, etc. by not eating.

Not me. Food has always been on my mind. My dad even says, “Lis, you were born hungry!”

September 11, 2001 was probably the only day in my entire life I did not have food on the brain.

At all.

No, I didn’t lose anyone that I knew that day, but 9/11 hit me personally on several accounts. That morning, I was on a 6:00 a.m. N.Y.C.-bound Amtrak train from D.C. for a work event so I ended up in New York that day.

(I was a a grad student who has just begun an internship at the National Education Association two weeks prior, and our Read Across America kick-off and photo shoot with Garth Brooks was set for September 11 in NYC).

I fell asleep reading Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (ironically about terrorism) in about Delaware or so, so I’d been asleep a while.

A little before 9 a.m. the conductor woke me (and others) up by yelling, “Oh my god, the World Trade Center is on fire!” I looked to my right and sure enough, there was the New York skyline I, being a Jersey girl, grew up with … but something was definitely wrong.

From our vantage point, the north tower looked as though a giant, gaping hole had been carved our of one side … or like a huge hunk of metal was hanging. We couldn’t tell from that far away.

On the train, it was chaos as people were craning their necks to get a look, saying they thought it was a small charter plane that had crashed (But why not into the river, I’d wondered). No one knew anything.

By the time we got to Penn Station, the second tower had been hit and America was officially under attack.

It’s a blur to me now, but my co-intern, Lian, and I somehow got in a cab and, not knowing what to do or where to go (all the streets were jammed with people and cars and taxis — sheer confusion, even in Midtown).

In the end, we headed to the First Amendment Center, where our event was to be held. We found our boss there, who was panicking (we were her brand-new interns and she felt responsible for us) and gave us the biggest hugs imaginable.

After we found our other co-workers (who were also headed to the same place), we managed to make phone calls to our families to tell them we were ok. As one would expect, cell reception was not good that day, if at all, and I got through a couple times.

My mom would fill me in on what her newscast was saying at the moment in each brief call before I lost service, “The first tower collapsed … Now a plane hit the Pentagon! There’s a loose plane flying over Pennsylvania … it’s been shot down!” (Which turned out not to be the case, depending on whose conspiracy theories you believe).

Then, with only the Internet and TV news telling us what was happening just a couple blocks away, we were all forced into the basement with the other First Amendment staff while the world around us — literally and figuratively — collapsed.

My friends in DC knew I was in NYC that day … and my friends at home in NJ thought I was in DC, since that’s where I lived. They didn’t know I was coming up for a work event, so there were many concerned voice mails and e-mails I got later that day. And my husband (then-boyfriend) was living in El Salvador, and couldn’t get through to my phone. Fortunately, my mom was able to e-mail him to tell him I was ok.

We stayed there in the basement for about five or six hours, I guess … just huddled together, watching, waiting, checking e-mail and assuring those who were concerned that we were indeed “ok” — shaken up, but as “ok” as we could be.

No one knew what was next, or what to expect. Then, because NYC was on city-wide lockdown and no one could come or go, when it was deemed “safe” the whole group moved to the hotel we’d been planning on staying at, the Kimberly.

We sat around, each just lost in his or her own thoughts, talking on occasion but mostly silent. How could anyone really make small talk?

Around eight o’clock, the then-president of the NEA, Bob Chase (whom I adore –we actually met that day for the first time), suggested we go try to find food, if anything was open. No one wanted to eat, none of us were hungry and it felt wrong to even be at a restaurant … but we couldn’t stay holed up in the hotel forever.

The guiltier we felt, the more we talked, trying to come to grips with the grim reality before us. We ate at a cute little Italian place which was (no surprise) empty, and we sat outside, café-style. Rounds of drinks were ordered, and glasses were emptied-emptied only to be refilled.

Alcohol and nibbles of pasta filled our bellies, seeking (unsuccessfully) to numb us even more. Dessert was followed by cognac.

Conversation flowed, and halted—halted as we realized our surroundings, and continued as we realized once again, how lucky we all were to be ok, and realizing just how many weren’t so lucky — who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one knew the exact death toll estimates than, but it looked grim even then.

Yes, we “ate” but I don’t know if I truly swallowed anything but fear and sadness that night.

When we got back to the hotel, I needed to write, and needed to do it badly. Writing has always been my form of therapy, and it helps me come to decisions on my own, something not easily done.

Having only anticipated a quick day-trip to NYC for this event, I had dismissed Lian’s idea of bringing a change of clothes, and therefore had nothing, much less my journal, which typically accompanies me everywhere.

I grabbed a pen and paper from the hotel nightstand and got to work—scribbled for nearly an hour until my hand hurt and my eyes were blurring together.

After I was done, I desperately needed air. So I stepped out to the balcony, joining the others, and noticed how deserted the streets of New York were. Occasionally, an emergency vehicle would pass, alarming all of us as to what its mission might be, but there were no people, and no taxis.

I’ve only seen New York empty one other time: Christmas Eve 1998, two a.m., Times Square. A friend and I went for drinks atop the View (at the Marriott) and decided to wander around Times Square, and were shocked to discover we were the only two people there.

On September 11, it was downright eerie.

The next day, we were able to leave the city on a train (with nary a security check, which freaked most of us out), only to head back to Washington: another hellpit of destruction and devastation, another victim of the terrorists’ sickening plot.

As the train made its way from Manhattan to New Jersey, the New York skyline that had been so familiar to me all my life was swathed in a thick, smoky haze that would last for days, if not weeks.

Staring at the eerie black cloud over Lower Manhattan, I knew then that things as we knew them would never be the same.

I don’t think anyone will ever forget that sunny September day in New York. Or Washington. Or Pennsylvania. Or anywhere, really.

Whether you were there or not, it left a collective, indelible mark on America as a whole. And seven years later, I can’t watch a program about 9/11 or read a story about it without my eyes welling up.

Today, like that chilly, bright blue-skied September day … food issues are the very least of my concerns. I just want to sit with it, remember it, feel it.

And remember how lucky and blessed I truly am.

How about you? How did 9/11 change you? Do you have a story you’d like to share today? And when it comes to stress and food, do you react usually by eating or not eating?