Reaction on the Boston Marathon

There are supposed to be fireworks at the end of races like The Boston Marathon--not deadly explosions.

As my coworker read the breaking news to a group of us in the office, I put my head down and continued to write the treatment that I was working on. It wasn't that I didn't want to be informed--I wasn't ready to be sad.

Sadness, after tragedy, is often addictive. After Colorado; Newtown; Sandy;  and other large events that have resulted in death, I often find myself refreshing the Twitter stream relentlessly, clicking from news organization to news organization, and texting friends about their thoughts. All I want to do is turn away--but I can't. So when I finally tuned into what was going on in Boston, an hour after it occurred, my obsession with the story quickly manifested. I wanted answers. I wanted to know who, what, when, where, why, HOW. I wanted to know everything.

And rather than feel sadness, I suddenly found myself feeling angry. This wasn't an attack on our country, no it couldn't be. There are over 90 other countries represented in a race like The Boston Marathon. This was senseless--terrifying--and reckless.

As someone who has run a lot of races, my anger too stemmed from the fact that this could have been any race in any city.

On Sunday morning, I ran my first race in nearly 9 months on the JFK runway--a 5k. I even got a few friends to come run it with me--one who hadn't ran a race before. As we approached the 5k, I told her how excited I was that it was her first--that the community feeling of running a 5k, or any race, is what keeps me coming back.  People are supportive--People feel a sense of community.

And what I love most about running in races is that it's not a judgmental sport. People of all ages run--people of all run levels run--and people from all over the world run--without being judged. The spectators stand by--cheering, relentless--holding signs that make you laugh as you pass by, giving you high fives, motivating you until you cross the finish line. And unless it's the Olympics or unless you're a top runner battling it out for the top time, then no one is cheering against you either. It may not be a team sport but it brings on a team of people who want to see success. It brings people together--if even for a short bit of time. That's the fun of any sporting event--the community that is drawn in. To see that disrupted, to see our spectators hurt--our runners--our fellow Americans--and even those who travel from near and far to take part in a race that has such magnitude as the Boston Marathon gives me chills and is beyond disheartening.

As more and more information is released, my heart begins to sink more. As I see the photos of the carnage, I am reminded of photos I've seen of battle scenes.  People are without legs--three lives have been lost--and hundreds are battling what could be life threatening injuries in multiple hospitals across the city of Boston.

An 8 year old boy lost his life by simply watching a race--a race that perhaps he one day wanted to participate in, or that his family may have been participating in yesterday.


As I try to suppress my anger, I think of what I can do--what we can do in order to support Boston at a time like this.

The answer is to continue loving. To continue loving with all our hearts--showing our neighbor who may not always seem to love us back--so much love that they can't avoid showing love too.

There is too much good in this world to let the bad rot it out.

To all those who took the start line yesterday--and who stood by, relentlessly cheering them on to the finish, my heart--my thoughts--and my prayers are with you.

In the next few weeks, I will be looking toward a marathon to run in either October or November. I recently told a friend that I would never think of doing a marathon--that it wasn't in my cards. But it is in my cards, because I have the means to do it. There are people who lost the ability to run another marathon--or even their first after the explosives went off yesterday--so I want to run in memory of / out of respect for them them. If anyone has any suggestions or who would like to join me, please reach out. Even if it means walking all 26 miles. This race is the answer to the anger--to the hate--to the sadness. This race is for them.

Libs on the Reel

Memorializing the Past, Envisioning the Future

It's not every day that you wake up and plan to visit a graveyard of thousands of people--but yesterday I did. Yesterday, I visited the 9/11 Memorial where just over 10 years ago innocent people, heros, and every day workers lost their lives as three of the center's buildings collapsed after two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. The Memorial recognizes all those who died that day on each of the two planes that his the towers, those who were in the buildings, bystanders, silent heros, and those that were on the other two planes that crashed into the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

It's nearly unimaginable what America would look like now if 9/11 had never happened, what the news would be focused on, how many people would still be in New York City, what our economy would look like, what kids would be learning in schools, what our tolerance in terms of equality might be, what disaster or tragedy may have happened instead.

It's a wonder how many troops lives we could have left unharmed, what the front page of the New York Times would be, each and every day since then--what millions of photos of New York may look like now, who our president might have been from 2004 through 2008.

The truth is that the moment the first plane hit the Twin Towers was the moment America's lives were forever changed--the moment our world became a little more fuzzy--the moment things came crumbling down.

When the teacher I had, at the time of the attacks, recently emailed me, he told me that he

asked his current 8th grade class questions about 9/11--and some of them didn't know how many planes had crashed. For all they knew was that they had been in a war since the moment they could say the word..."war."

I hope that one day the kids I have can visit this site and not be in a war, that they can talk about how well the country is doing, how nice it is not to be battling someone else.

I know those times of calm and happy are few and far between, and that life without war, in our country, and most all other countries, is rare, but I hope for their sake they get to experience that rarity, that they get to experience front page news that makes people smile, rather than news that drives people to duck tape their windows shut. That they get to live life without terror and overhyped media dramatizing inaccuracies. I hope that they get to live with people who tell the truth. And, I hope, above all things, they get to live.