inured
When I first heard about the explosions, it was after being cocooned for two hours in meetings, mired in the mundane minutiae of the office; and as we emerged from our meetings, we could hear that our colleagues had been talking. "Did you hear?" "Is it true about other devices?" "Terrorism?" "I think they're evacuating the Back Bay."
And part of all of that reminded me of being a child in Manila at a time when malls and movie theaters were being bombed, and sometimes it was the Communists, sometimes it was the Muslims. Like now, rumors chased the news, and fear followed facts, but mostly we shrugged it off and accepted it as a part of life in a country as dysfunctional as ours. I don't know if my perception was limited by my youth or if we really were that fatalistic about it, but I don't remember any of those acts of violence changing the way we lived. You just sort of shook your head, scanned the casualty lists for familiar names and then got on with your life. They had grown too common for us to have benefits and memorials. I had grown up with horrors of this scale, and while 9/11 was its own level of terrible, the Marathon bombings seemed familiar and had not disturbed me as much.
Then I logged on to Facebook and saw the scroll of roll calls and public declarations of life. People reaching out for each other in the ether, seeking comfort, offering reassurance and sharing ways in which we could help each other. I looked at all of that and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. I wondered, briefly, if kids who were born twelve years ago are also watching the news and thinking that it's just the latest horror in a decade of fear. That was the first time that day that I actually felt sad; but even that passed.
I responded to emails from my parents and LittleSister. I posted to Facebook, joining in the chorus of "I'm OK" for the benefit of folks who had been asking, but my contribution was also about, "I'm not letting this change my life or my plans." -- which may have been intended as "I will be resilient. I will be defiant. I will carry on." but it can also be read as, "I don't care about this. This is not worthy of my attention."
It wasn't intended to mean the latter, but it's not fully the former, either. I was numb, cold, and snappish towards people who were asking me if I was alright. I left work at 5, to prep for a dinner I had planned a week earlier, and in between sliding trays into an oven and washing dishes, I was swapping email with a small group of geeks trying to brainstorm ways to help. The authorities are asking for everyone taking photos and video. Maybe there's a way to crowdsource the analysis? Maybe someone should track all of the crowdfunders that are going to go up to offset medical expenses for those injured in the explosion?
Action filling in the gap that emotion has not occupied.
Dinner was fine, and for a few hours, we almost forgot what had happened. Life was normal. Life was comfortable. I could laugh and feel again. And in the quiet, after company had left, it was easy to grow cold and numb once more.
And part of all of that reminded me of being a child in Manila at a time when malls and movie theaters were being bombed, and sometimes it was the Communists, sometimes it was the Muslims. Like now, rumors chased the news, and fear followed facts, but mostly we shrugged it off and accepted it as a part of life in a country as dysfunctional as ours. I don't know if my perception was limited by my youth or if we really were that fatalistic about it, but I don't remember any of those acts of violence changing the way we lived. You just sort of shook your head, scanned the casualty lists for familiar names and then got on with your life. They had grown too common for us to have benefits and memorials. I had grown up with horrors of this scale, and while 9/11 was its own level of terrible, the Marathon bombings seemed familiar and had not disturbed me as much.
Then I logged on to Facebook and saw the scroll of roll calls and public declarations of life. People reaching out for each other in the ether, seeking comfort, offering reassurance and sharing ways in which we could help each other. I looked at all of that and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. I wondered, briefly, if kids who were born twelve years ago are also watching the news and thinking that it's just the latest horror in a decade of fear. That was the first time that day that I actually felt sad; but even that passed.
I responded to emails from my parents and LittleSister. I posted to Facebook, joining in the chorus of "I'm OK" for the benefit of folks who had been asking, but my contribution was also about, "I'm not letting this change my life or my plans." -- which may have been intended as "I will be resilient. I will be defiant. I will carry on." but it can also be read as, "I don't care about this. This is not worthy of my attention."
It wasn't intended to mean the latter, but it's not fully the former, either. I was numb, cold, and snappish towards people who were asking me if I was alright. I left work at 5, to prep for a dinner I had planned a week earlier, and in between sliding trays into an oven and washing dishes, I was swapping email with a small group of geeks trying to brainstorm ways to help. The authorities are asking for everyone taking photos and video. Maybe there's a way to crowdsource the analysis? Maybe someone should track all of the crowdfunders that are going to go up to offset medical expenses for those injured in the explosion?
Action filling in the gap that emotion has not occupied.
Dinner was fine, and for a few hours, we almost forgot what had happened. Life was normal. Life was comfortable. I could laugh and feel again. And in the quiet, after company had left, it was easy to grow cold and numb once more.