Do you ever have the sense that you ought not to share your opinion? That you might just be adding another voice to an already noisy conversation? That's sort of how I am feeling in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. What should I say? Why would I say it, and would any one care. You start to question whether you have a real right to grieve unless you were there when the bombs went off, knew someone who was hurt, or have visited the memorial. But I feel distinctly odd trying to write a post about the balsamic reduction I used for my tomatoes last night, or the deviled eggs I made for the first time on the morning of Marathon monday. I'm finding that many of my friends and colleagues want to share the story of their experience. People recount their whole day, and an odd fascination washes over people as they recall how they had left only an hour or so before, or how they'd stood precisely in that spot in years prior. People talk about where they were when they heard the news, and we all swap tidbits of information on the surviving bomber. Sometimes it seems as though it has been talked about enough... but then that moment passes quickly and you know this is still very real and very necessary to discuss. One of the best parts about blogging is that it forces a person to write their experience down, and even if the author is the only one who reads it, well then that might just be the reason to start typing.
Our morning started out so well. My husband and I live about three miles from the finish line of the marathon, and each year we have a little brunch party with food & libation. We stand on Beacon Street and cheer on the runners. We pass out orange slices to runners and call out the names of those athlete's who are proudly wearing a "Run Mary Run" slogan on their shirt or a "for Children's Hospital" logo. In the earliest parts of the morning we marvel at the marathoners on bikes who are missing their lower limbs. They are strong and determined. Their arms move rhythmically and we are momentarily so in awe that we nearly forget to keep clapping. The runners then come by, so agile and strong. It is amazing that some seem energized, especially when the cheering crowds yell out "you've got this!" "nearly there!!" That is the best part about watching the marathon. You might be on the side lines but you feel right in it at moments. You cringe when you see a runner limping with a sore calf, but smile as he moves determinedly forward. You tear up with you see the runner who is wearing a shirt that says "this one is for dad" on the front of their shirt, and on the back, a smiling picture of her late father. You smirk when a beautifully strong woman runs, her visor pinned with "So this is 50!"
About 10 of us passed out orange slices for most of the morning into the afternoon. My husband would often chase a runner with a fresh slice if he or she happened to knock it out of our hands as they tried not to pause for a moment in their passing. Their faces would light up as they would see him running next to them holding a fresh slice they could grab. We all laughed and delighted. If you've ever been in Boston on Marathon Monday then you just know how the day is supposed to feel. You know how this town feels when it is alive and up early - though perhaps with some thanks to Irish Coffee. This is our opening to warmer weather. It is our patriotism for our town, our country, and our indelible spirit. We were basking in it all up until the bombings.
As I imagine many did, I saw the news on my twitter feed. "An explosion at marathon finish line." I read it aloud, bewildered, to those around me. "Huh?" "What?" "Yeah, weird," I replied, and we waited for my feed to refresh. Then the news came of another, and then runners seemed to know, perhaps being called by onlookers further down the line. "What happened?" they asked us in short breath and shocked expressions. "We dont know." We spent the next several (6? 7?) hours in our apartment watching the coverage. Three friends work at Mass General Hospital and they soon left our apartment to head into work or wait on standby. I marveled at them. They felt compelled to go into the head of the lion, while we all felt somewhat secure watching from our safe distance. I was surprised how young I felt that afternoon - 15 again, on September 11th, 2001 - staring up at a perfectly blue sky and trying to fathom the greater world around me. The sky was the same blue Marathon Monday. I felt that strange, shocked, numbness. I reached most everyone I could think of on my phone - when the lines let us call out.
The following days are a blur. I went to Connecticut, to my parents farm, and doing just as I did as a 15 year old, I ate lunch in silence on the sunny porch with a nervous corgi dog by my side. At their farm, you cannot hear anything really. There is wind, and buzzing of little bugs, and an occasional rumbling manure truck driving past on the road below. The only problem was that I could still hear Boston in my head. When you watch enough TV coverage I think the lines of reality begin to blur. HD filming and uncut audio makes you almost certain that you were there, right there, not 3.2 miles away. But of course not, I was safe, far away, with the ability to hear, and walk, and run, and cry. Hundreds were in there, hurting.
On Thursday night we went to bed, or nearly, with news coverage of the MIT Office who had been shot. This rapid succession of horrific events makes a person start saying things like a weathered old person, "What is this world coming to?" I woke in the middle of the night and found the other side of the bed had grown cold. "Where was he?" In the living room, headphones plugged into the computer, with the blue light of the TV illuminating his face as he chewed a ring-finger nail. "Just go back to bed, honey, you will not want to see this." But of course, from that moment I could not look away. We watched in stunned anguish at the events now transpiring just 3 miles in the northern direction to us.
I stayed up all night. I was surprised by just how fast my heart continued to beat as I watched the coverage. I reasoned that a marathoner's heart beat might be similar, beating strongly and forcefully for hours on end. I made us leave around 5 am, coaxing my husband up and out, and we took our dog too. We headed north to Portsmouth just moments before the whole area was locked down. I felt wired, and frightened, and stunned.
When they found him, in that boat, I soon after fell asleep. I woke feeling terrible, as if hungover from stress. But I suppose we will all be feeling those symptoms for quite some time.
I told my students that this event would change them. I hope they know that this time, I am right. As a 15 year old, I was forever changed by 9/11 - in ways that words cannot measure or describe, even though during that day I was again at a safe distance under swaying trees. I reminded my students, as pupils of English, that duality can exist. You can feel both "Boston Strong" and also deeply saddened, angry, or afraid. Of course I realize that when I am stressing lessons to my students, I am often stressing it to myself. I suppose finding an emotion on which to pin one's sentiments would feel like a minor victory at this moment. I still do not know how to feel, or what, exactly, I am feeling. As we trade stories at the lunch table, or check our news feeds throughout these passing days, we are grieving together. My students were asked to journal and given an option of either journaling about their reaction to the Boston Marathon bombings or writing about someone they love in great detail. I couldn't help myself that afternoon as I flipped open the tattered composition notebooks. Did they feel as I did? Or were they unaware or unscathed? Did they all pick the second option?
One entry read, "My mother smells like cookies. And I love when she's right near me." Yes, me too, I thought. "Confused, shocked, panicked, and sad. That's how I felt, in that order," another entry said. And I just held those journals for a little while, dirty and a little tattered, and I thought, "Me too, me too."
