Why Boston?

It's been kind of a rough week.

Many of you know that most of my hilariously frustrating experiences in an interracial relationship take place in the city I call home: Boston, Massachusetts.  I've mentioned the Boston Marathon in a previous post and most recently during my own journey from backslidden jogger to 2012 Boston Marathoner.

Last Monday I spent the afternoon camped out near the finish line of the Marathon, at the corner of Newbury and Hereford Streets, cheering on friends running in this year's race.  The intense noise from spectators was so deafening that a simple phone call from a friend became an an exercise in futility:

"WHAT?! HIS PACE? IT'S 6:40! NO! I SAID 6! 40! I HAVEN'T SEEN HIM YET! I DON'T KNOW WHAT COLOR HE'S WEARING! ALL THESE PEOPLE LOOK THE SAME TO ME! HUH? OKAY! OH WAIT, HE JUST CROSSED THE FINISH LINE!"

After a few failed attempts to get through a wall of people and closer to the finish line, I figured it might be wise to make my way home since I had to catch a flight to DC in a few hours.  Within minutes of taking off, it became the most depressing flight ever.

One word that describes my feelings over the past week?  Conflicted:  Should I keep watching a news station if the anchors can't pronounce the names my city's street names?  Where do homeless people go during a shelter-in-place? What if the suspect had fled to Roxbury instead of Watertown?  Why is All-American Muslim considered an oxymoron?  What would our city and our world be like if we harnessed the same energy and resources used to track down these suspects, to search for every child that went missing?  Is an arrest more like chopping off a branch than killing at the root?

On Saturday morning I had to remind myself that the last six days were not a dream.

"How do you feel knowing they caught the suspect last night?" my husband asked.
"I feel a sense of ease...but not relief," I replied. "Because I still have more questions than answers."