Projections on BAM this week (Photo: Laughing Squid)
My previous post, Paying Attention, was written just one day before the Boston Marathon Bombings. Paying attention? Indeed.
Since the events on Monday I have been left feeling the deep sorrow that hung palpably over this city. That’s all any of us have been talking about. But at the same time, I have been left feeling…wordless. Thousands of condolences have appeared on Facebook, on Twitter, and in my email inbox as well. But a response beyond “thank you for this” would feel forced and redundant. Words have felt inadequate.
This morning author Dennis Lehane wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times, Messing With The Wrong City.
Here’s a passage:
But I do love this city. I love its atrocious accent, its inferiority complex in terms of New York, its nut-job drivers, the insane logic of its street system. I get a perverse pleasure every time I take the T in the winter and the air-conditioning is on in the subway car, or when I take it in the summer and the heat is blasting. Bostonians don’t love easy things, they love hard things — blizzards, the bleachers in Fenway Park, a good brawl over a contested parking space. Two different friends texted me the identical message yesterday: They messed with the wrong city. This wasn’t a macho sentiment. It wasn’t “Bring it on” or a similarly insipid bit of posturing. The point wasn’t how we were going to mass in the coffee shops of the South End to figure out how to retaliate. Law enforcement will take care of that, thank you. No, what a Bostonian means when he or she says “They messed with the wrong city” is “You don’t think this changes anything, do you?”
Trust me, we won’t be giving up any civil liberties to keep ourselves safe because of this. We won’t cancel next year’s marathon. We won’t drive to New Hampshire and stockpile weapons. When the authorities find the weak and terminally maladjusted culprit or culprits, we’ll roll our eyes at whatever backward ideology they embrace and move on with our lives.
Reading this short piece was like a quickening, bringing me back into the arena of life. Lehane is so direct, so expressive, and his tone captures that peculiar toughness that attracted me to this city in the first place. Boston is full of people who are notoriously outspoken, brusk, opinionated, fierce, ready to battle anyone or anything. It was that feistiness that made me feel like I belonged here over 30 years ago when I made this town my home. I’m ready to reclaim it.
You embody Boston for me, Deborah, plenty tough and at the same time fully alive, and so the marathon attack does feel more personal.
Thanks Andrew. Such kind words. I’ll align myself with this city any day.
I read Lehane’s piece, too, this morning and thought it was just right.
I checked FB on Monday to see if you’d checked in and was so relieved to know you weren’t at the scene. My financial advisor’s daughter was in the marathon and had crossed the finish line and gotten beyond the explosions when they occurred. Her husband by chance had decided to leave the area after she’d crossed the finish. I think of the timing and how things could have been so different, as they were for the son of another friend who was watching at the finish and saw the horror unfold. Fortunately, he wasn’t injured.
Maureen, there have been so many stories like this one, of last minute changes that meant everything. We usually bike down to the finish line and cheer for everyone but we were both too busy this year to go. Patriots Day is one of the best days in Boston, so full of joy and celebration. I hope it can still be that in the future. Thanks for your words.
Thank you for Lehane’s column. I went to the page and read it in its entirety. Especially the sentiments about retaliation–that’s not the job of Boston’s citizens, nor any of us for that matter.
I was just in the city in March for a writers conference, hadn’t been there in years. Vibrant and ornery place, Boston. I fervently hope that next year’s Patriots Day is the best ever.
Thanks, Deborah for quoting Lehane. He certainly captured our indomitable spirit. The heroes of April 15th, have set a standard for us all to aspire to. I too am touched by the love I have felt from friends all over the country. Especially Yankees stadium singing “Sweet Caroline” at half time. That brought tears to my eyes. President Obama said that “today there are no Democrats and no Republicans, just Americans.” For a few short days, there are no teams, just people consoling and fortifying one another.
Solidarity, Deborah.