Roughly a year ago, I was planted at my desk in my studio apartment working on a paper. I'd been hunched over my laptop, squinting at the Word document, for hours. Feeling bored and distracted (and vaguely worried that I was turning into Quasimodo), I decided to go for a walk. It wasn't particularly warm outside, but it was sunny enough to lure me out of my isolation chamber. The midday rays would serve as a welcome reminder that summer wasn't too far away.
It was also Marathon Monday in Boston. I lived near the race route, and so the first thing I saw stepping away from my stoop was a collection of barricades blocking traffic at my building's intersection to keep cars from driving near the course. The sturdy, bright-blue BPD sawhorses were being guarded by a couple impressively dressed but thoroughly bored-looking police officers.
That moment, a Jeep Cherokee full of teenagers pulled up to the stop light near the officers. As I waited at the curb to cross the street, I noticed a kid hanging out of one of the rear windows. He started waving enthusiastically to the policemen, motioning them towards the car. The cops paused skeptically, but one of them gave in and approached. The teen gave the officer two bottles of water and a small bag of chips, then the Jeep sped off. Returning to his post, the officer with the goodies shrugged at his partner and they began munching on the chips.
Watching the whole interaction, I felt a small surge of glee. What a pleasant moment! People can be so nice sometimes. Teenagers! Engaging in random acts of kindness! For cops!
It was about 2:30 p.m. Over the next 20 minutes, my decision to walk to the race course to cheer the runners would get stymied. Instead of joining a celebratory fray, I would find myself heading into a sea of bewildered and concerned Bostonians flooding away from Beacon St, having just been ordered to evacuate by exceedingly serious police officers. Soon after, I would run into some friends from my grad program. We would walk to one of their nearby apartments and stare in confusion at the news and let our families know that we were safe. I can only assume that the two cops I saw didn't have another relaxing moment for quite a while.
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The anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing was about two weeks ago. That day, one year ago, was a sad and confusing day to be in Boston; it turned into a sad and confusing week due to the citywide lockdown/manhunt that ensued a few days later. Eventually, active sadness and confusion morphed into what seemed like a persistent, ambient, city-wide ache. As the next year progressed, the bombing never felt like it really left the collective consciousness of the city. Various pieces of news about the Tsarnaev brothers were constantly emerging. Local TV programming followed the recovery progress of injured runners and spectators. Boylston Street west of Copley Plaza remained a memorial site even as it returned to its usual commercial routine. Boston is, overall, a rather small city, and even as Beantown "returned to normal," the bombing retained the kind of lasting, ghostly presence -- occasioning lasting, residual grief -- that one might expect after such a community experiences a shocking, violent loss.
Of course, this loss wasn't experienced in a vacuum. Boston is part of the United States. In his remarks after the bombing, President Obama spoke in the inclusive "we": "We carry on. We race. We strive." He also made the point more explicitly, declaring, "it’s our beloved city too. Boston may be your hometown, but we claim it too." This type of language is sadly familiar after events like 9/11, Columbine, Newtown, etc., and seems to be the preferred way for national figures to respond to unusually traumatic events. The sentiment expresses the idea that local catastrophes have nationwide resonance; if you hurt the part, you injure the whole.
Still, while the "we're all in this together" sentiment reliably exists in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, local vs. national responses tend to diverge across time. Because I'd never been at home in a city that experienced such a trauma, I'd never been in the position of observing this divergence firsthand. Be it consciously or unconsciously, the national responses to tragic events tend to depend on the nature, uniqueness, and "severity" of the incident, and by these clinical metrics, the marathon attack wasn't destined to spend too long in the national spotlight. While the injured numbered well into the 200s, the death total was three -- fewer fatalities than a typical summer weekend in Chicago. While the attack was an act of terrorism, the plot was local and the terrorists seemingly isolated, meaning that the threat of a repeat incident seems minimal. If laying out such data seems cold, it's worth remembering that national attention courts larger stakes than local coverage, and have different considerations: Is it fair to give this incident -- with its one-time nature and low death count -- extended time on the national stage, given the systemic nature and high death count associated with random acts of gun violence in the U.S.? Will intensive and lasting coverage reignite unrealistic worries about domestic terrorism?
Some of these thoughts came to my mind while watching the news at my gym on the anniversary of the bombing. Local news stations WCBV, WHDH, and WBZ were broadcasting full coverage of the multi-hour memorial ceremony from start to finish; meanwhile, CNN and MSNBC dedicated a short segment to the memorial before moving on to other news. It felt startling that the anniversary wasn't getting more national attention.
But then, I needed to admit that my perspective is a local one. Particularly for locals, simple and extended attention feels proper -- attention without expectations of closure, or competition with other traumas, or cynicism about the value or necessity of commemorations -- even if, on a national stage, such attention may feel unnecessary. My contribution is late, but here it is all the same.
