Thank you to the local and state police officers, FBI, ATF, and Homeland Security agents for working non-stop, cooperatively, and diligently to bring this guy in alive. I'm inclined to bake the Watertown PD cookies or a cake and bring it to you in a day or so. And thank you to the citizens for taking this seriously, staying inside, even in downtown Boston or other areas where it was seemingly completely safe. I can't articulate right now why that makes me happy, but as someone very close to the danger today, I appreciated the solidarity of this city.
I love Boston. I love its people. I love its resiliency.
That was my Facebook status last night before I went to bed. As promised, here's the blog post.
On Marathon Monday, I slept in. Around 10:30 I got up, went into the living room, and turned on the race. I watched the men's and women's winners cross the finish line.
While watching them I was amazed at the incredible abilities of the human body and the genuine looks of excitement and encouragement of the onlookers. I thought to myself, "I should really give running a shot again. I know it's been almost 10 years since I ran with any regularity, but I should give it a shot again." After the men's winner crossed the finish line, I ate lunch, then turned off the TV around 1 to work on a paper. Two hours or so later, my boston.com app alerted me to explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line. I turned on the TV in disbelief and was unable to tear my attention away for about 4 hours or so. This emotional high I had been on that propelled me into paper writing and made me more concerned about my exercise regimen became an emotional low of horror, disbelief, fear that I knew people injured or killed, and most of all, a sense of why. Who bombs a marathon? What kind of message was that supposed to send?
Classes continued on as "normal" the next day, though my thoughts were elsewhere. While I knew no one hurt or killed personally, my city had been attacked. Yes, I grew up in Mississippi and do consider myself a southern woman in some respects, but Massachusetts has been my home for the past ten years (this year). This attack felt personal. And after seeing statuses and memes and videos (like this one from the Colbert Report), I became more motivated to start running again. I've chosen a Couch to 5k plan, got a couple of accountability buddies that are going to do the program with me, and look forward to successfully running a 5k at some point this summer. Oh and the physical fitness and weight loss that goes with this will be great too... :)
But to be honest, I knew it wasn't over. No one had taken responsibility, and yet everything the police were releasing pointed to terrorism. Pointed to intentions to take lives, intentions to cause harm, intentions to scare. Terrorists usually (so I've been told) like to take credit for their "work". These people/person hadn't come forward. So I wasn't convinced we were safe. The week of classes was hard and to say I didn't care about schoolwork would be an understatement. I don't envy professors and TAs that had to figure out how to balance our processing needs (and theirs) with the need to cover material and not get behind.
Thursday came, and since I have no classes on Fridays, I was looking forward to a fun night of dinner, a student performance of Chicago, and drinks with friends. I had all that (though only half of the play... it was okay). I came home thrilled. I came home feeling like life was getting back to normal. As I was getting ready for bed, I got a text from BU emergency alerts saying an MIT cop had been killed and that the suspects had fled the scene. I was home, not near MIT, said a prayer for the cop's family and went to bed. Around 1am, a BU friend that lives in Watertown as well called me. "Are you home?" "Yes," I replied. "Why what's wrong?" "A cop was killed at MIT and they chased the guys to Watertown. I don't know what's going on but I just heard a ton of gunshots outside my house." It didn't even dawn on me in this moment that these were the marathon bombers. And I even thought the initial Facebook and Twitter posts hypothesizing that they were connected were overreaching. "Oh no," I said. "Okay well I'm home and in bed. No lights are on. We're safely inside."
The timeline of events in the manhunt can be read here. (Note - times are in the Pacific time zone. Add 3 hours for what it really was here in Watertown.) What I want to emphasize is how I don't know how to think or what to feel. What I want to emphasize is that I don't have words. That I can't articulate what this has done to me personally, my friends, this community, Boston, and the nation. I am THRILLED Suspect #2 (as the media started calling him) was taken alive. I pray he recovers in the hospital, is cooperative and gives us the answers we desperately want. But three people have died and almost 200 injured now in the past week. Common places of commerce, leisure, and living have been violated and forced to host some of the worst examples of human capacity. At the same time, people are bonding together. My neighbor waved at me today as he was gardening and I was getting my car. People still honk and wave and cheer when cops drive through Watertown Square. I will get up tomorrow and run my Couch to 5k program for the day. Boylston Street will eventually reopen.
What I wonder is, what will the new normal look like? I don't believe things will go back to being how they were before. Maybe they will on the surface, but the wounds of this past week will take generations to heal, not months or years. Do we want it to look normal? How long will a backfiring car make us jump and wonder if it's another explosive? Will anyone in the area ever use pressure cookers again? Will people be screened if they buy pressure cookers like people are when they buy Sudafed? Will backpacks be searched at all major public events in the area? Will they be allowed at all? When will we trust the stranger standing next to us again?
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