I <3 Boston

I’ve written here before about how Patriots Day, Marathon Monday, is the best day of the year to be a Bostonian. It is, it really is. I’m sitting here trying to think of a way to describe the energy downtown along the marathon route, and I don’t have adequate words for the task. It’s a joyful day, a positive day, a day when everyone is looking out for each other. Whole families trek down to Boylston Street to cheer for strangers. Everyone is laughing, cheering, smiling. It’s an entirely positive experience.

Sometimes, in the face of unspeakable tragedy, people have the tendency to get a little bit maudlin, maybe overly sentimental, maybe even to start looking back on things with rose colored glasses. I can assure you, that is not the case here. Patriots Day and the Boston Marathon have always been a special day around these parts.

Judging by the number of people who have written similar thoughts on Facebook, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

My Mom usually watches our daughter on Mondays, but she was going to out of town, so I took the day off. I haven’t had Patriots Day off since I left academia, and I wanted an excuse to go downtown. I thought about getting Red Sox tickets. I had ambitions of cheering for a coworker who would be running the marathon. It was my favorite day of the year, and I wanted to share it with my daughter.

Over the weekend, Beans invited us to hang out with her and some friends instead. And I will be forever grateful to her for the invitation. Instead of going to downtown Boston, Lilian and I drove out to Concord to watch Revolutionary War reenactors carrying muskets and 4H girls in hoop skirts in the world’s most earnest parade. It wasn’t the marathon, but it was a very sweet morning.

I thought about driving downtown after we left Concord, but I’d stubbed my toe the night before and it was still throbbing. For once in my life, I did the smart thing and went home.

I have never been so happy to have tripped over my own feet.

And I trip over my own feet a lot.

LJ and I snuggled up on the living room floor and I absentmindedly glanced at Facebook on my iPhone. “Did anybody else hear a rumble downtown?” “Holy crap, what just happened?” “OMG, explosion at the marathon!” At first I thought it was a manhole cover or transformer blowing. It pretty quickly became clear that something horrible had happened. I turned on the TV and watched with horror as events unfolded. We’ve been fairly glued to the news media this past week.

I’ve always been proud to be from Boston. Even when we were getting our asses handed to us by the Yankees. But Boston did itself proud on Monday. And I think we’ve done ourselves proud over the past week. I’ve seen a lot of hurt and anger, but I’ve also seen a lot of love and positivity. This entire city has really come together. We’ve reached out to each other. We’re taking care of each other.

I love that Boston’s chief of police talked in a press conference about how we need to live our lives and not let fear turn our city into a police state. I love that Governor Patrick reminded everyone to avoid rushing to judgement, and to avoid stereotypes. I love that our focus has been on how we can honor the victims, help out the injured, and move forward.

This past week has been insane. But I don’t feel like it’s “changed everything.” Boston is going to keep being Boston. Because that’s just what we do.