(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 16)

I kind of struggled with this post.

I wanted to acknowledge the tragedy that took place ten years ago but I didn’t want to upset anyone by writing about it.

(So, I guess consider this a trigger warning, and if you want to read no further, I don’t mind.)

I also don’t want to make it about me, because I was barely in the country when it happened and it affected so many people in so many different ways.

But considering this space serves as a historical record of sorts and I am only relating events through my own experiences, that’s what I’m offering this week.

It’s helpful to me to write the words and maybe it will be helpful to someone else to read them.

Ten years ago, when I was still teaching, the French teacher asked me if I wanted to chaperone a trip with the middle schoolers to Quebec City.

I took Spanish growing up, and I never spoke a word of French, which I made clear to my colleague, but she said it didn’t matter.

So I got myself a passport (note to self: Time to renew my passport!) and spent the first weekend of April break in Quebec City.

It was a really great trip - I loved the city, and it was good for me to experience not speaking the dominant language in a city. It was kind of a safe space to experience failure. I told Kathy we needed to take the family…which we have yet to do. (But, as it turns out, I am now the only non-French speaker in the house. All of the girls have been taking [and doing very well at] French, and Kathy took it growing up. So I imagine this trip is still in our future.) (Once I renew my passport.)

But that’s how it came to be that I was on a bus driving back towards Boston on Monday afternoon when word started to spread that something had gone awry at the Boston Marathon.

(A reminder to the non-Massachusetts readers: In Massachusetts the Boston Marathon takes place on Patriot’s Day, which is the third Monday in April. That day is a holiday across the state, and most schools have spring break the week of Patriot’s Day, not Easter week, which was the case when I was growing up in New York.)

The rumors on the bus ranged from a transformer explosion in Boston to the speculation that a bomb had gone off. It was hard to get facts, and ten years ago not every student had a phone so there were few sources spouting information (or misinformation).

I think we had barely crossed the border at this point, so there were still hours left on the ride. We stopped for a bite to eat in New Hampshire and there were TVs in the restaurant, and the facts were slowly pieced together over the remainder of the trip and when we arrived back home that evening.

It still feels foggy remembering hearing all of the tragic details, and I don’t know if that’s a defense mechanism on my part or just the by-product of a tiring weekend monitoring teenagers in a foreign city for three days.

The rest of the week unfolded in a similar manner, as information came out sporadically and an intense search for those responsible got underway.

We were out of state for that, too, as we went to New York for the rest of our week off.

Overnight Thursday into Friday, the bombers were tracked down and there was a deadly shootout in Watertown. On Friday night I went to the Mets game. The starters were Matt Harvey and Stephen Strasburg, two exciting, young, hard-throwing pitchers. (I wouldn’t have believed you if you had told me neither would still be significant contributors to baseball in ten years.) I spent most of that game following the developments on Twitter as the final suspect was found and brought into custody.

I’m only exaggerating slightly when I tell you that in the ten years since, I think about that week all the time.

When I was in college I walked the street where the marathon finishes (and where the bombings happened) constantly. I lived in Watertown for a few years, not much more than a mile from where the bombers were found. I drove the same streets they drove, I worked near it all - hearing how everything happened was like hearing a summary of my post-college life. My experience, I’m sure, is not uncommon to college graduates still living in the Boston area.

I was lucky to not have been directly affected ten years ago…but it easily could have affected me in any number of ways.

In the years since, I’ve met and talked to people who were running that day and have their own stories of the race being stopped and just being told to go home from various places along the course.

I’ve stressed many times in this space just how much the Boston Marathon has meant to me throughout the past almost 30 years.

For the past ten years my heart hurt whenever I thought about how this wonderful and joyful event turned so tragic. That was part of the emotion I felt running down Boylston Street.

I do think maybe that being able to participate in the marathon the past couple of years might have made the part of my heart that hurt a little smaller.

But, like so many other people, that feeling is never going to completely go away no matter how many years go by.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

Tastefully switching gears here we’ll go with happier memories: I heard a couple of songs in the past couple of weeks that really took me back.

First of all, I dropped my daughter off at the supermarket where she works last week and, as I am wont to do, did a quick little shop before I went back home. While I was in the bread aisle I heard Elton John’s ‘Club at the End of the Street,’ which I think it’s safe to say I hadn’t heard in probably 20 years. I’ve been making up for lost time and listening to it like crazy.

Then, last week at the Mets game, Mark Canha’s walk-up song sounded familiar, and Matt pinpointed it as being used in a Listerine commercial when we were kids. (Teens, more accurately.) Turns out it’s called ‘Tarzan Boy’ by the band Baltimora. Both are good listens and they made me happy to hear so they might also make you happy if the above made you sad.

Notes

*Am I feeling a little left out, seeing how this is the first Boston Marathon since - believe it or not - 2019 that I haven’t participated in? Well, if I’m being honest, a little. But I dropped by the expo this weekend because I wanted to get a pair of Boston Marathon-themed sunglasses that I regretted not getting last year and a couple of other small items, like little Boston flags and stickers. And the big feeling wasn’t that I was missing out.

It was gratitude.

Man, am I lucky that I got to do this twice. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance. So I shifted the thought process from ‘not being a part of it this year’ to ‘lucky to have been a part of the last two.’

And, of course, it doesn’t hurt that soon I’ll be training for Chicago and, after being inspired by this weekend, having that to focus on.

*Had a great time with my brother at the Mets game last week. Looking forward to telling you more about it probably next week. Spent time this week planning the next visits. No regrets getting these tickets. I’m obsessed with it.

*Perhaps worth noting Sunday’s game was a loss. But it’s been a good week for the Mets since then - 4 wins and just one loss.

*I guess there will be one more Sunday Paper to remind you of this but Matt is releasing his album on Friday, April 28. Then Saturday, April 29 there is a release party. We’ll be there. Here’s where you can get your tickets.

*We’ll continue posting about anything and everything on the social media links. You can follow along below.