Marathon

Low sounding thunder echoed through the streets twice.  It sounded like the sounds you hear under a bridge, when the heavy traffic is speeding above you, as the wheels move over metal planks.

Baboom…. Baboom….

A woman on the news compared it to transformers.  I looked up at the sky and around the tall buildings in search of the source.

We ignored our questions, and walked towards Back Bay station, a couple blocks away.

“Excuse me!” said a policeman who pushed his way, running through the crowd.

Dad was tired and sometimes tears came down from his eyes along the way, since his time had been so disappointing.  Hoping to break 3 hours, he had come in a little after 4.  After having trained for months and been looking forward to the marathon for awhile, this was unfortunate.

I took a picture of all the people heading up towards the subway from Dartmouth street.  I didn’t know that on the other side, people were running for their lives, or to help people, or to find a way out of the city.  As I crossed the street, I overheard a man on his cell phone, “Yeah – what the hell happened?”  I kept walking but also kept glancing back at him, half of me wanting to know what had happened, but also not really wanting to know.

I looked around at the people walking into the subway station.  But before we entered, we approached the security guard in front.

“Two bombs exploded downtown.  They've called in the military.  I wouldn't get on that subway.  Just saying, I’m being nice.”

I looked at my tired father and worried that we wouldn't be able to get out easily, but didn't want to make him walk.  We all looked at each other, trying to decide what to do in those few seconds.

“Ah, he doesn't know what he’s talking about,” said my brother.

So we decided to get the first train we could out of there.

We entered the Back Bay subway station.  I looked around for signs of chaos, trying to listen in on people’s phone conversations.  I was walking quickly to buy a subway pass, while my brother walked quickly to the bathroom and my mother helped my father catch up with us.  There were some transit police roaming around the gates, but I didn't want to know anymore information about what happened.

“Shit.” I said, in front of my family, while waiting anxiously for the next subway train to push through the tunnel.  My brother had just read a text from a friend, but only said outloud, “Man, if what Kevin is saying is true…. something about wheeling people away without limbs?”

“I don’t want to know.  Don’t tell me.”

We had no idea what it had been, that sound we heard twice.  I just wanted to get home.  Suddenly the city felt dangerous – packed with so many people I don’t know, so many people who could do something crazy.  Suddenly I was in the US, conscious of potential enemies who would look to hurt a booming east coast city.  The buildings seemed so big now, the tunnel that I was in seemed like the perfect place for an explosion, and everything was moving so slowly.

A train pulled up.  We walked on and sat next to people who were just sitting on the subway, as usual.  Then the guy next to me said, “Excuse me, but did something happen?”  I can’t remember what I said to him, but probably something along the lines of that we were at the marathon, and now we were heading home, and that’s all I wanted to know.

The doors of the train remained opened for longer than usual, so it seemed, and a voice came over the speaker saying, “This train will not be stopping at Downtown Crossing.  This train will not be stopping at Downtown Crossing.”  It began to move away, out of the underground to where I could see a view of the Copley Square buildings.  The sky was blue and everything seemed normal before we popped back underground again.

I was glad that we sped through some of the stops, but were we heading away or into where something had happened?  At the next stop, a couple of women and their daughters got on the train, carrying shopping bags.  They were on their phones.  “What is going on?”  They asked us.  The train was quieter now, as people were trying to overhear people’s answer to that question, or on their phones themselves.  A stop or two later, a woman had an image on her phone and was staring at it.  She was sitting next to my mother, who looked over her shoulder to see.

My mother gasped and raised her hand to her mouth, “It’s the Finish Line!”

I could hear a crack in her voice, signaling tears in my eyes immediately.  She went on to say, “Look at the people!  Oh my gosh….”  Shock was pushing them out of my system, my body couldn't hold all this water.  Immediately I thought about the announcers, the spectators, the tired runners, the people selling t-shirts, the security guards, medical people, and everyone who I had just seen standing around that area.  Were they……. what were they?  Were they okay??

I leaned on my father, the stumbling marathon runner, and didn't know what else to do.  I was thankful that we weren't in an emergency room, or worse, on my brother’s birthday.  We left the train, we walked home.  We made it home.  We were home.  That was all I had been wanting since we heard those sounds and it had happened.  I had never been so thankful to cross the threshold of that Somerville apartment, together.

Bostonian Eyes on New York City

(January 5th, posted belatedly)

Whenever I travel through New York City someone is always there to greet me, asking for money. Penn Station is the headquarters, hosting people just waiting for a young college kid or business person to pass their way. My Northface pink (cherry) jacket must say something about my seeming kindness or maybe it’s my bangs and friendly reddish hair. Or does my large Osprey backpack or black side bag screams ATM?

I should be kinder, $1.00 or $.50 from my wallet isn’t really a big deal, but having worked in the world of Social Work I tend to say “no”. Knowing all the social work organizations available, it’s the principle that bothers me. Also, after commuting through Boston for over 2 ½ years and only being asked for money once or twice, it is incredible and almost humorous that the few times I’ve traveled through Penn Station this past month I’ve been questioned.

After my clash with a money-asker, I sat and stared with my Bostonian eyes at the New Yorkers as I waited for my train to Monclair, NJ. A group of high school boys were buying train tickets for their friends, arguing with thick Jersey accents over the price. Businessmen yawned and grimaced, racing by with their side bags, one man chomping on a huge soft pretzel. Young giggling girls sprinted to their train, one colliding with a sleepy man walking casually through the station. I noticed a woman with a green knitted hat resembling some kind of animal with 2 googily eyes, while more business people invaded the corridor. As I went to my train, everyone seemed to be racing me down the stairs, flying by. A little girl with a shiny golden winter coat whirled herself down the train aisle, gripping her father’s hands as he guided her to her seat.

The train conductor collected tickets from us,

“Hey, everybody good?”

“Yeah, how you doing?”

“That’s what I’m talkin about. They had a fatality on here around 4:00. Hopefully they got it cleaned up - Upper Monclair.”

In Boston, the person may have responded, “Hanging in there” and the conductor may not have casually mentioned a fatality. Commuters stand respectfully at North Station staring into space, waiting for their respective trains. They march down and up the stairs to their subways. They wear dark pea coats, solid colors or tartan and don’t normally accessorize with googily eyes or shiny gold.

However, when I first arrived to New York City on my Bolt Bus I was hit by energy somewhat absent in Boston. Heading into the long glowing skyline strikes up inspiration in me – those ginormous buildings loaded with people and lights. The moment I stepped off the bus there was the Empire State Building down the street to my right, lit up in red and green. Billboards 6 or 7 stories high lined 34th street advertising Foot Action and Forever 21. Like a younger sibling New York City flashes its charming teethy grin and presses your buttons, containing a youthful energy not replicated anywhere else.

Just don’t come asking me for money, okay?

Castles and Pockets

Harvard Square magically lights up at night like my old Polly Pocket kingdom.

Inside the heart-shaped plastic case I would find a tiny little castle, lit up streetlights and a princess. Tiny Polly stood in her plastic spot on the “ground”, next to her horse and carriage with the prince positioned into the yonder grass colored plastic.

What a creator I was, moving her around that little kingdom, not to mention her other “pockets”, including a kitchen scene, the beach, and a couple other house-like or neighborhood settings. If you google her name, you’ll see what I mean.

Intimate and intricate, these little settings grew an imagination in me. I could control Polly’s movements and create a storyline for her and her friends. One minute they would be in the kitchen, proceed to the living room, suddenly it’s bedtime, or perhaps a boy would knock on the door unexpectedly catching all the day’s plans off guard. Two friends might even get into a disagreement over who gets to ride the horse (whose stable happens to reside in the house as well).

But I no longer create a world for this plastic princess.

In my current world, I hit Harvard station at 8:21 and step on an escalator for 53 seconds, remaining to the right so the esca-walkers can pass me. At the top, a man with a weathered face offers me a Metro “newspaper” which advertises tragedy and gossip everyday. The two seconds it takes to reach out and grab it is too much. A second escalator lifts me out of the underground, focusing Harvard Square for me. Is it raining up there?

Raindrops sometimes sleep on the skylights above, snoozing off rising into the sky again. Sometimes the flaky snow is flirting with the wind, forcing me to bundle my jacket more tightly and ignore their careless dancing, though the romance makes me feel warmer inside. Other times, the morning light gently pulls up the corners of my mouth. Brick escorts my feet, while also holding up a homeless man and his dog, college students and magazine vendors. In the winter, Peacoated and North Faced people walk by me, while side bags and backpacks are hugging the backs and shoulders in the same way that children cling to their parents or ride their father’s shoulders.

Harvard University lights up like a scholastic castle once the sun has set again.

It’s one world that I see and at the end of the day I return home to another one. I tromp through the grass in the square in front of the Post Office. Far away from the scholastic castle I find rest in this place I’ve learned to call home. But for how much longer will that still be true. Both will be dropped soon, left behind as soon as I step on that plane.

The lid will be pulled down on both, with a strong clicking sound.