4.20.2013

What Is Freedom?

When I woke up Saturday morning, my lingering feeling was this: Freedom.

On Thursday night, the most tense events Boston has seen in decades began to unfold in the city’s surrounding suburbs. Police had been investigating the Monday bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line all week, and on Thursday, they finally released footage of who they deemed to be the suspects.

The tape was grainy, the photos not exactly clear, but it was enough to know that if anyone had seen these two guys — who looked to be no more than local college students — they would quickly be caught.

Still, in a week that had been one big, long chunk of mourning and disbelief, no one was ready for anything to happen. Things had unfolded so slowly, and even those who watched the video three or four times before heading to bed Thursday night figured the pieces would begin to come together slowly, here and there, before an arrest was made.

Instead, the suspects shot a police officer at the MIT campus in Cambridge, carjacked an SUV, and drove into the night, leading police on a chase that wound through local neighborhoods until it devolved into a bomb-throwing firefight in Watertown in the middle of darkness.

On Friday morning, residents of Boston, Cambridge, Watertown and several surrounding suburbs woke to the news that one suspect had been killed by police, but the other had escaped — driving over the other suspect, his older brother, in his haste — and was somewhere in the area. Residents of those towns were told to stay indoors — no, commanded to — as Boston, for the first time in history save for extreme weather situations, told its citizens that they were not to step foot outside. A manhunt was on. The city had been shut down. Everyone was to stay put while the cops did their jobs.

The locals were only too happy to obey. While a typical Massachusetts resident will forge ahead through 12 inches of snow, danger is something else, and Monday showed just how dangerous these two were. With the police clearly on edge about the entire situation, and with them having already chased the culprits for some eight hours, there was no question everyone would stay home.

But as Friday wore on, it became difficult. While people can plan ahead for a snowstorm, packing away food and such, an impromptu day in the apartment gets old fast. While the news was coming in rapidly for hours, with more details surfacing about the suspects, that soon slowed. Cabin fever set in, with questions: If they haven’t caught him by now, could they?

Around 6 p.m., the lockdown order was lifted by a downcast police chief, and that was where the fear that had eased away earlier in the day came back. They were admitting they didn’t have him but telling everyone to go back on the streets. If it wasn’t safe before, why would it be now? Everyone was fine being brave and returning to their regular lives on Monday and Tuesday, but that’s because the bombs had gone off, the victims rushed to hospital, and the debris cleared. This danger was still in process.

I decided to take a walk. I wanted to do something, and I especially wanted to do something where I could come back and find that maybe something had changed. I knew my neighborhood was safe, but my feet and eyes needed to help. A quick swing around a few blocks confirmed it: People were out, and music was playing. It was quiet and eerie, a few stray raindrops falling and a storm coming in, but it was safe. Even the wail of sirens across the river, and the many red and blue lights, didn’t shake me. The entire police population of Massachusetts was here. They just had to keep working.

But I did wonder what we do now. If this kid was still out there with his guns and bombs, what do you do? It’s brave to go out after an attack and just keep living, but it’s foolhardy to charge into an area where danger hasn’t yet been contained. I felt complete confidence where I was, but I was already thinking of what areas I would avoid, and how many days it would take before we turned grumpy on the cops and asked them why they hadn’t nabbed this guy right away.

By the time I returned home, however, I learned that the recent batch of sirens I heard were fresh for a reason — shots had been fired in Watertown, and they had found the suspect again. Within three hours, which flew past like minutes, they had him in custody. Danger averted. Life restored. Heroes praised. Celebration commenced.

I did another swing around the neighborhood then, this time to see the people light on their feet and smiling. Crowds bubbled up around Boston — huge, cheering gaggles of people. Bars were packed; impromptu parades were held for the cops as they drove home.

That was it. They did it — we did it. The story had ended the way it should. All the cliches about Boston proved true, and our officers were truly the finest.

One of my roommates turned to me in this and asked about the patriotism showing up on the TV. She asked why this was a victory for America, and whether people were right to be waving flags and saying the usual pro-U.S. things they say at a time like this.

I tried to explain that this is a victory for America because the point of terrorism is to paralyze life, and to alter regular, everyday democracy. She was concerned that this kind of patriotism is what gets people so mad at us in the first place, and I concurred, but I said that stopping it in the face of something like this would be wrong. For all the cheesiness — and, let’s admit it, misguided or cheap patriotism — at such a time, people have the essence of it right. People who attack America and its ideals are attacking the ability to be free — to create laws, to spread good, to have democracy, to glutton ourselves, to spend hours of our days watching sports, to defend our amendments, to be uber-American, all the time.

It’s hard for me to explain how I grasped the American-ness of this moment, and why it was right to celebrate the U.S., but let me just say this: When September 11 happened, and everyone talked about what terrorists were trying to do and how you counter that by going back to normal life, I didn’t really get it. I lived through September 11, at an age where I comprehended what was going on, and I read news and analysis every year after. It was only that to me, though — test cases, and information.

But on Friday, I lived the threat of terrorism, and I lived the American response. Fear and danger are not tolerated in this country. Our law enforcement is geared to go crazy when terror tries to dominate us, and to take it down. They aren’t just defending our homeland, and the ideals and values of this country. They’re also protecting us — little, insignificant us, the ones who want to hop on a train or walk down the street without fear. I still believe America is that place because of what I saw this week. The people who protect us do not mess around.

I discovered freedom in the most real way Saturday morning, when I went to the corner store and bought The Boston Globe and a Coke and then walked down my street, through a park, across a busy road (I jaywalked!), and next to the Charles River. I looked across the river and watched dozens of cars zooming down Interstate 90 and Storrow Drive, and I glanced behind me and saw the newly rebuilt Boston University bridge, and the beautiful Prudential Center Tower (it casts it shadow over Copley Square) in the distance.

No one in Boston had to think to himself or herself, “I’m going to go out today and be brave so the terrorists don’t win.” We’re from Boston. We’re workers. How many days have I come home tired and stressed and thought, “I just want to lay down, or cry, or read,” and instead, I move on to the next thing and just keep working? That is Boston. That is a distinctly Northeast spirit. We don’t work to make a statement. We work because there’s things to do, and we’re Americans, and we’re going to keep doing them until the job is done. That’s why we were back at work on Tuesday, and those are the people I saw driving Saturday. It’s less a gigantic statement we’re all struggling to make and more the way of life that we will not let die.

I don’t know what’s behind terrorism or what people are thinking or what America is or what they’re trying to do to it. I don’t know how our patriotism plays into the terrorism equation. I also don’t know that it matters.

But I do know that Saturday morning, I was super-patriotic. I wanted to give out high-fives and talk about it and jump around and shout. I knew what had challenged us Friday, and I knew what had been done to overcome it. All this stuff I read for years — I understand that on a firsthand level now. I got this crazy sense of what it means to be an American, and why that’s not bad. I was smiling. I was ready to go again.

I was free.
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4.19.2013

Catch him.

The old bait-and-switch, perhaps?

Did the cops call the press conference to get the suspect to let his guard down, and then pounce on him when he came out?

We'll know soon enough [update, 9:03 p.m.: WBZ Boston just reported that the homeowner left his home after the lockdown was lifted and saw blood on the boat in his backyard; he called police, and that is why they closed in on the suspect so soon]. But in the space of time when the lockdown was lifted and I went out and stretched my legs, this is what happened. Yes, they got him:















I wrote earlier this week about what happened Marathon Monday, why Boston can still be a city on a hill, and why Friday was far more scary than anything else this week.

Here's some good links I've found today (no rhyme or reason for why I included them, other than they were helpful at the time).
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My backyard

I used to worry that I would leave Boston without ever really knowing my neighborhood.

When I lived in Lynchburg, I knew nothing outside of my college campus, how to get to Wal-Mart, and where to go if I wanted a long, winding drive on a sunny afternoon. That’s the way I wanted it.

When I return to my hometown of Schroon Lake, I’m always surprised how little I know of the Adirondack region besides the roads I always traveled as a kid.

When I moved to Boston, I decided I would discover my city. I drove the streets of Cambridge (where I live) and walked the avenues of Boston (where I worked, went to school and enjoy my free time).

Now I can say that this all happened in my backyard.

Here’s a map that gives you an idea of how the manhunt that started Thursday night and continued through Friday connected to me. It’s purposefully understated.



MIT area: This is where the 26-year-old police officer was killed around 10:30 p.m. Thursday. I had dinner in that area of Cambridge at 6 p.m. Thursday. I then drove down Cambridge Street and looped back into the Kendall Square area as I tried to unwind from a long and stressful week. The shooting was at the corner of Vassar and Main streets. I walk there all the time and drove past it Thursday night. The police were searching on Cambridge Street. That’s the first street I drove down Thursday, around 8 p.m. I saw the restaurants and stores that were being shown on Friday morning’s TV coverage.

Cambridge Rindge and Latin: This is where the second suspect, the younger brother, graduated from high school and was a wrestler. It’s a 15-minute walk from my house and next to the main branch of Cambridge Public Library, which I frequent to read and check out books. Finding a parking spot is hard if you miss the afternoon window and get there after Cambridge Rindge and Latin lets out, because the street and big park-like area in front of the library are filled with teenagers. I walk past them all the time and think, “Man, they must think I’m old. These are high school kids.”

There’s also a Starbucks almost directly across from Cambridge Rindge and Latin that I basically live in. It’s right next to the Broadway Marketplace grocery store. If you get a nice seat next to the window, you can look to your left and see Harvard’s campus and to your right and see the beautiful architecture of Cambridge Rindge and Latin school.

A lot of kids from the high school play at the YMCA in Central Square where I go to play basketball after work. Some of them, innocently enough, asked if I went there, too. God bless those kids.

Shell station: This is at the corner of Memorial Drive and River Street. I pass this Shell station every single day on my way home from work — River Street is how you get from Boston (or Allston or Watertown) into Cambridge. It crosses the river, hence its name. It is parallel to Western Avenue, which is how you get out of Cambridge. I regularly stop at this gas station and buy milk, orange juice, candy or a New York Times. The shopkeeper and I are on friendly terms.

This station is where the suspects carjacked an SUV, or ditched the guy that they carjacked the SUV from. It has since been cordoned off with police tape. We saw photos of police searching the station Friday morning. It is a five-minute walk from my house — just a few blocks.

Western Avenue/Arsenal Street: Police reportedly chased the suspects in the carjacked SUV into Watertown. That means they drove down Western Avenue (how to get out of Boston) across the river. This road becomes Arsenal Street, which leads into Watertown. Along the way, the suspects were reportedly throwing explosive devices out the window. A four-mile stretch was shut down Friday morning, with police reportedly searching for more explosive devices.

That is the exact route I drive to work every morning. It’s a five-minute drive with no traffic, two minutes if you don’t hit the lights. It slows down considerably during morning rush hour, especially when tractor-trailers decide to park on half of the street. School buses have also made me late to work before. That’s the way you go to get to where I work, though — one straight route.

The shots that everyone saw on national TV on Friday morning — Arsenal Street, the surrounding areas, the lights, etc. — is as familiar to me as my bedroom.

Arsenal Street Mall: This area is where police gathered Thursday night and Friday morning after chasing the suspects into Watertown. This is where all the TV cameras congregated, and where most news gathering happened. They fanned out from here into the Watertown neighborhoods.

This is where I get coffee or lunch with my co-workers. We walk across Arsenal Street and down its sidewalks.

480 Arsenal St.: This is the address of NESN, my company. This is also the address that I woke up to Friday morning as the epicenter of the chase and manhunt.

There’s a lot I can’t say — just know that this is where all the cops and TV cameras were, and the street addresses given out later where they were reportedly looking for suspects — those are right behind NESN. That’s where my mind and heart was for most of the morning.


More people contacted me Monday asking me if I was OK than have on Friday. That’s likely because people don’t know the geography around here. Today has obviously been much, much scarier. We’re inside, with our doors locked. This is our backyard.

It’s more than my backyard, though — this is my neighborhood. This is where I work and live.

This is where I walk up and down the river, and this is where I drove last night to blow off some stress. This is where I buy my newspapers (I’ve dreamed of being able to walk down the street and buy anything since I was a little kid), and this is where every inch of my life happens every moribund day.

“Boston” has never referred to the land from the North End down to Jamaica Plain and Dorchester. You tell people you’re from Boston even if it’s the suburbs, because we’re all part of Boston – the city limits just can’t hold the amount of people who live and work around here. Watertown, Cambridge and Somerville are part of Boston’s transit system. We’re all in one town.

These are my neighbors and my friends. So today, of all days, pray for Boston.
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4.17.2013

City on a Hill.

Some saw marshy land. Others saw three big mounds. Most saw frightening weather, dangerous creatures, threatening forests and little hope that any new society could be formed, or that God-honoring life would ever prevail.

John Winthrop saw Boston, and he called it a City on a Hill.

Boston had three hills already, so the moniker fit, but Winthrop meant it for something else. He was nodding to all the symbolism that a new group of settlers striving for freedom for their faith could want.

“Ye are the light of the world,” Matthew 5:14 says. “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”

Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wanted Boston to be that city.

They looked for that city on Monday, the people without hope but plumb with fear.

They had seen it from above, from the sweeping view of the Prudential Tower, where the big Boston Public Library leads to Copley Square, with long Boylston Street and its shiny Apple store sneaking up on the left side.

They had seen it from the ground, when they looped in and out of the streets in the Back Bay, never knowing what curious brownstone they would find down this public alley or that.

They had run it from the south, watching the scenery grow from the trees of Hopkinton to the commerce-lined streets of the Back Bay, the stray statues and signs of the city’s great history appearing along the route.

But that city was gone Monday.

People don’t come to Boston for comfort. They didn’t come for it in the 17th century, and they don’t come for it now. Boston is a city for serious people, where the best of the best are so good that they critique even mere excellence. Boston demands champions of its sports team, presidents from its suburbs and hills from its runners.

But Boston isn’t just about crafty settlers fighting to survive, or idealistic freshmen thinking they’ll put this postage-sized city — from Paul Revere’s house down the Citgo sign — in their pocket. Boston was founded as a city of hope, and it’s that hope that can’t be forgotten as the minutes crawl away from a day everyone wants to forget.

The story of the original settlers, and the Founding Fathers, is often reinterpreted today. Schoolchildren get one version, and politicians give another, depending on how they’d like to defend the Constitution or advance propaganda.

But whatever the political views, or the fascination with tales of whether Revere or Sam Adams are as noble as people have made them to be, the reason for Massachusetts being settled in the first place is not contested. People came to this land for freedom — freedom from tyrannical rule, sure, but really freedom to practice what they believed to be truth.

The first residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony believed in hope: “A hope that makes us not ashamed” (Romans 5:5). They believed in peace: “A peace that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). They believed in grace: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). They believed in a God Who keeps His promises: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

From this original belief, and the specific doctrines to which these settlers held, has grown not only a varied city but also a vibrant state and a powerful nation. The new land began with the idea that there was a God worth counting on, and that the words He gave — hope, truth, peace, grace — had real meaning in real, difficult life.

Boston has morphed over the years into a city of its own. It’s now known for tolerance and diversity after a hiccupping couple of centuries during which its citizens battled in real-life case studies over religious tolerance, racial turmoil and increasing societal demands.

It has great pride in its universities and sports teams as well as some of the best research in the world in numerous fields. It has birthed unique political events, and it continues be a forbearer in matters of religion, even as faith in the city appears largely disfigured from what first landed on its shores.

But in becoming the city it has become today, as different as it looks, Boston has not necessarily failed to be the city it set out to be.

Boston is still a city on a hill.

Boston is a place that millions of people look to for inspiration, opportunity or guidance. It is the destination of teenagers’ dreams, it is the fulfillment of minor leaguers’ promise, and it is a haven for countless endeavors and ways of thought.

In establishing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Winthrop moved to create a city that would be a shining light to the world — a place that would speak of what could be, and that would invite new generations to make a fresh start. Centuries later, Boston does not run — save the blue laws — on puritanical rules. But it has done just what Winthrop envisioned: It has become a city that creates a space for people to see the goodness of God reflected in His creation, namely the people He created and the joy, hope and excellence with which they live their lives.

On Monday, people saw their city knocked off its hill. No longer was Boston a place to gather the runners from many nations for what many of them call the best race in the world. No longer was the marathon a proving ground for everyday men and women who wanted to inspire their communities and raise money to heal everyday pain. No longer was the city a spot where people could celebrate the beauty of God’s creation, and the good that remains in a world much wrecked by hurtful actions, mistakes and decay.

When the blasts shook Boylston Street on Monday, they took more than a race away — they also robbed the city of the hope and joy it was reflecting, and it left many to wonder whether God had disappeared, too.

A major theme — no, the only theme — of the Bible argues urgently that this cannot be the case.

Bad happens, the Bible teaches, but God redeems. Man fell in the Garden, but God provided a way to rise. Mistakes tear apart relationships, but God provides a way to bring them together. Entropy racks the world, but God promises a new creation — and He promises that it can start right now, on this earth.

But in that theme lies one very disconcerting fact: Every seed must die before it grows.

And that is how we arrive at that nasty philosophical point that is often given to try to dull the pain, but that seems horribly wrong and unnecessary. Why must the unthinkable happen for people to band together and triumph far more? Why must there be death to provide a rich life? Why must people have pain to see God in a new way?

John Winthrop can’t tell us, and even Jesus asked for a lot of faith when reconciling the wreckage of this world with the reality of fallen man and the promise of a patched-up future. The Christian doctrine, while understandable on paper, always faces the biggest hurdles when it comes to people’s gut.

But, whatever your creed, they were onto something when they stood on those principles to start this colony that became this city. Whatever your beliefs — whether you see good from God or not, and whether you think Winthrop and company had it wrong all along — know this: The tenets on which they founded this city, and the grand faith or ambition that Boston could always be a sign to the world of resilience, hope and a better tomorrow — that has never passed away.

“Therefore let us choose life, that we and our seed may live by obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him, for He is our life, and our prosperity,” Winthrop said in 1630.

First responders rushing to the scene. Bystanders scooping victims from the blood. Citizens helping stranded runners. Police doing their jobs. The entire state standing in defiance, and promising to help and fight back.

Boston has chosen life. It may be living by many different creeds, and in a very different age, but Boston is still reflecting the goodness, joy and hope of the God for which this colony was made. Whether God is acknowledged or not, His redemption is being lived in this city, as hope swallows up hate.

Even in the darkness, Boston remains a city on a hill.
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4.16.2013

Boston.

“Were you at the marathon?”

“No.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yes.”

No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes.

Those are the words you fire off in the heat of the afternoon, as the news rushes in, as you try to figure out what happened. Those are the characters you type, hoping they’ll make it through a suddenly communication-embargoed city.

Cell lines are down. Text messages are failing. News is hard to judge.

No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes.

My roommate is running in the marathon. Do they have a list of the runners who have finished, so I can have some idea where she is?

No.

I’m listed as her emergency contact. We joked about it the night before. “Sure — I’ll tell my boss to let me leave work so I can come peel you off the course when you flop over,” I told her. She laughed back — a good sign she was ready to tame the mental beast of this one as well as the physical, after her first marathon had thrown her for a loop.

Now, real emergency. Real, real emergency. Horrific emergency. Do I have her mother’s phone number?

No.

The co-worker had come over, the Sox having wrapped up a win in very 2013 Sox fashion. Did you hear there was an explosion at the marathon?

No.

“Very 2013 fashion” — 2013 won’t be owned by anyone else now. It will be owned by singed blue and yellow, by the tattered streamers over the plaza I walked through Sunday. A mother from my church wanted to show her children the finish line. We walked down Boylston, past those shops. We saw them unfurl the flags. “Can you tell what countries they belong to?” I ask the children.

No.

I could tell Germany and Australia. I could tell South Africa. We stood in front of the finish line, looked up at the grandstands, pointed at the library. “Have you ever been inside there?” I asked.

No.

“It’s beautiful,” I say. “It’s like a European castle, with this big courtyard and these giant lions.” A library built to be the finest, to hold the finest, in a city built to be the finest, to hold the finest.

What I left out is that this entire area is one of my favorites, the beautiful church and the beautiful square and the beautiful Gothic light posts hanging out. I would have coffee over there so many times on my long, midweek days off as a sports freelancer. I went into Marathon Sports back there to help my runner roommate pick out racing clothes. I would walk this side of Boylston, that side, around the library and through the square, on my many trips from Park Street through the Back Bay to the Fens, all on foot. Boston is a walking city. Boston is a running city. Have you walked it?

No.

It’s spring now. We’ve started it twice and stopped it twice, our nice days engulfed by that tattered edge of April that won’t less us move on. Boston folk are used to the cold, the rain, the winter, but after the messy last few months, don’t tease. Spring should be here to stay.

On Monday, real spring was here, at least in the minds of much of Boston. Twitter flooded with Boston Marathon well-wishers, and I was clicking on things I never click on, caught in the spirit. I remembered working for the daily paper that covered Hopkinton, and the runner profiles we churned out in the weeks leading up. I remembered a pair of Stoneham citizens I interviewed who were running in memory of a brother. I remembered the feeling I get when I step out of the Cambridge YMCA on a cold day, with no coat and just shorts as the heat from my basketball playing fights off the cold. The runners would be feeling that way today, no matter what April threw at them. They would conquer it in mass, gliding on the asphalt, whether spring was ready to stay or not. Could it be any more perfect?

No.

And then it struck, the details that I didn’t want to try to put together as soon as I knew — just moments after it happened — that something horrible had happened. The historicity, the fact that it was my city, the stats and figures and explanations — I don’t want to know. I just want it to stop. Will it stop?

No.

There was crying on the phone with my mother, longer text messages to the brothers since we couldn’t get through to each other on the phone, and finally, jogging up the steps to my Cambridge home, where I opened the door, ran the length of the apartment, and hustled up the final set of stairs to see her there, real, in person. The roommate. There was a dinner of salmon and asparagus — what was supposed to be my little feast — that I made for her that night, that I made with delicacies I had bought at a ship-shape rate at a Boston institution, Haymarket, just two days before. There was lounging in front of the TV, watching 30 Rock, doing what you do when you don’t want to talk about it, read about it or hear about it anymore. Would it stop?

No.

She gave me her parents’ phone number. I gave her the number of mine.

I looked away from photos, knowing so many were so worse off than me.

I wandered back to my computer a few times, scrolling through Facebook to see how everyone was doing. A former colleague from the daily paper, with whom I had complained about marathon coverage many a time, was celebrating his first non-Marathon Monday at JFK Library (you know the rest). Friends from college had friends running Boston. Buddies from graduate school, and pals from my current life, all checked in. I had seen the pictures, the horrible pictures. So many people were hurt, so badly. Was anyone I knew hurt?

No.

And then it started. The outpouring. The boasts that Boston was different. The cheesy memes that said you don’t mess with Boston, with the mascots of its four main sports dressed for battle and staring down the camera. I smirked at that one. The earlier ones — the ones where we act like only in Boston would first responders rush to the scene so well, where something unique about us is what made this day different than just a tragedy — those were hard for me to believe. Really? Really, in the face of this, could we know such things? But this, this silly little picture, touched a nerve.

It was then that I realized what was so revolting about this whole thing. They attacked us — whoever this was — on Patriots Day, on our day to celebrate the incredible history this little city has had. They attacked us when the charity runners were going through, when the families were gathered together. They attacked us on our first day of spring, on our day to stick our noses up to the cold and say that we will have sunshine from now on. They attacked us in Boston, a city where the dirty looks and crankiness are so common and so us that a day outside its cynicism — albeit the kind of cynicism that only comes from chasing after excellence, and greatness, and worth — makes me long to be back in its safety. You think you can come in here on Patriots Day and take away spring and hope and promise?

No. Not in our city.

My friends were changing their profile pictures to the Boston skyline, but mine is already set on a cityscape of the Pru and the John Hancock Tower, shot straight down the Mass. Ave. bridge, with a sticker-covered pole framing the edge. That is my gateway, taken on a perfect spring day, as I walk the hundreds of Smoots into the city and hang a left on Boylston to trek wherever I can go. Are you going to mess with that? Are you going to mess with our city?

No.

Were you at the marathon? Are you OK?

I answered the text messages, but I don’t know what’s going on more than anyone out there. It was a day of turmoil for me, so much more than can be captured in scattered thoughts.

But humanism and Boston bravado aside, I know this. We live here because we all believe in something bigger than ourselves. You don’t come to Boston for a comfortable life, or to just paddle along in an OK career. You come here because you want to be something, to see something, to do something, to go somewhere.

That’s why we're cranky. It’s also why we run.

And wherever this goes, it’s also why we’re all getting up Tuesday, and looking to see what we can do to help, to heal, to move on and move forward. That’s what marathon runners do, after all.

We will clean our streets. We will lift our broken. We will shake our heads at the sources of it all.

But most of all, whatever our story of Marathon Monday 2013 is, we will know how to answer the questions.

Is Boston a city on a hill?

Is this nasty, unconscionable act going to be answered?

Will its people keep running?

Yes.
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4.06.2013

Maybe Tonight

So maybe tonight I need baseball
Why does that feel so wrong?
Maybe tonight I need singing
And someone to help write the song.
Maybe tonight I need solace
Someone else for once to be strong
Maybe tonight I need color
To tell me it won't be long.
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