I didn’t want to write about last Monday because I didn’t want to make it *about me.* I also haven’t posted in awhile (which is partly on purpose and partly because of being busy), so it would be weird to break the silence without a general update. So I’m writing for logistical purposes: I was going to send out a mail blast, realized I’d need to mention the bombings since most of my fans are not in the area, and figured it would be easier to put the story into one place. ‘Cause all I have so far is a flurry of tweets and an interview with my town newspaper.
I was two blocks away from the second explosion, but I am totally fine.
Full story:
Monday the 15th was my birthday. It’s also, as you know by now, a state holiday in Massachusetts, and I had the day off work. I’d been planning for months to spend the day shopping in Boston, and the weather was nice enough to cooperate and give me a lovely day.
I had birthday brunch with friends in Salem, then caught 11:40 train into town. I was wearing a cool dress and fancy birthday hat and listening to the Donnas and being in a good mood.
The ultimate goal was to get to the Nike store, which is on Newbury Street a block North of the marathon finish line, which I assume is something Nike did on purpose. But first I had an extensive stop off at DSW (I wish that were as fun as it sounded but it was buying stuff I needed, not shopping for fun), followed by a quick pop-in at the MAC store (makeup, not computers) on Newbury St. I bought a few necessities I’d been running low on and asked if anyone knew where I could get my eyebrows threaded, which they didn’t but thought if I kept heading down Newbury St. I’d find something. So I headed down further and went to the Nike store, where they didn’t have what I wanted, then I headed further down again. I was starting to think about lunch, wondering if I had time to make it to the Mass Ave area, and almost breezed past a nail salon with a big EYEBROW THREADING sign in the windows. According to my receipt, it was HT Nails at 232 Newbury St. and they did a FABULOUS job on my eyebrows! (My eyebrows are tricky to get right.) But if you look at a map, you’ll see that they’re directly behind the second explosion.
BUT, the explosions didn’t happen until 2:50, and according to my receipt I paid at 2:46:40, giving me enough time to get out the door and walk about a block (still on Newbury St., still towards Mass Ave.) before I heard a boom. It was quite loud, and as I told Salem Gazette, it was deeper and boomier than a gunshot. Sounded like a cannon coming from around the finish line of the marathon. Not that they would have a canon there, but hopefully it was something festive like that. The other people walking down the street seemed to have the same thought–like, “Whoah, what was that? Hm, probably something for the marathon I hope.”
FAQ: Did you hear screaming? Sort of. First of all, the marathon finish line is already extremely loud and screamy. So nothing that really registered. In retrospect, I do remember hearing a big spiked scream, as if the whole crowd had been startled, but I didn’t even really make the connection.
So I had already practically forgotten the first boom and was walking along my merry way when there was another boom. This one was different. The best way to describe it is to say that it was SERIOUS. It was much louder than the first. It was much closer than the first. And it was just–you knew. You knew it was not planned, and that it was bad, and destructive. And that it was a terrorist attack. The politicians and reporters and public servants have to be official and not say that until they have some sort of proof, but if you were there you knew. I don’t know if the people close to the first blast knew at the first one, but we knew at the second one.
I was just approaching the corner of Gloucester and Newbury Street, so I looked to the left to see Boylston St. (where the marathon is), to see what was going on. I guess I expected to see more movement and hear more screaming. But everyone was too shocked to move or scream yet. They were staring to the left, mostly in silence. I don’t know what they were seeing–if they were close enough to see the blood or if they were looking at the smoke and fire and trying to see what had happened. I don’t know how long we were silent, because you know how time kind of stops. But slowly–it felt like the snowball built so, so slowly–people started screaming, and people starting running away, either down Boylston St against the flow of the marathon (runners were no longer approaching at this point), or North towards me.
I don’t need a second hint, and I did not want to die on my birthday. If you’re in the midst of something like this, you don’t know when it’s over. I turned on my heel and headed straight up North. There might have been more explosions, there might have been a stampede about to start, there might have been poisonous gas in the explosions, there might be a building about to topple over, there might have been a godzilla monster for all I knew at that point. Either way, the idea is get out of there. Because you don’t know if the danger is spreading farther than it first looks like, because there will be people stampeding out and you don’t want to get trampled, and because they’ll have to clear the area to make room for first responders.
I just wasn’t sure whether I should walk or run. I was hesitant to run because I didn’t want to encourage people to panic and stampede. Especially for people like me who didn’t see what happened, only the reactions, we were all sort of feeling each other out for what to do. Like, I’m sure some people turned to leave because they saw me turn to leave. So I thought if I started running, other people would start running too. (Obviously, some people were already running, but, mob mentality, you know.) But eventually I decided to play it safe and took off my hat and started running (as much as you can in heels).
The other people running away and I didn’t get very far–I think it was only on Comm Ave that a marathon security officer told us not to run. He wasn’t mean about it, just trying to calm us down. And we did all stop running, and I felt better, because even though none of us REALLY knew what was happening, he knew better than we did. I mean, he had a walkie-talkie and would have heard whatever the officers on the scene were saying. So once he said to stop running I felt relieved that there was probably nothing to run away from, at least where we were all the way up on Comm Ave.
One of the first thoughts after “This has to be a terrorist attack” and “Get out of here” is “This is so going to be on the news,” followed by, “i HOPE this is going to be on the news, because if it’s not that means the attack is bigger than this and other cities are getting blown up too.” So I sent my first tweet at 2:52, as soon as I felt safe enough to pause for a brief moment, to write “wtf explosions and people running.” In hopes that maybe someone would tell me what was going on. But I didn’t really have time to stop and keep checking my tweets, because I was hightailing it out of there.
I started by just going North more–I think I ended up on Malborough St– and then headed East to get to the train station. I was afraid that they would stop the trains from running, and I’d be stranded in Boston.
I could briefly smell smoke as I was walking North. I glanced over my shoulder a few times to see if I could tell what was going on, but I couldn’t really. A doorman said, “Look at the sky,” but it mostly just looked cloudy from where I was.
I overheard some people on the street saying their phones weren’t working. I hadn’t tried to place calls, but my internet was working, as you can tell by my tweets.
After awhile people were less running away and more standing around looking confused and concerned and trying to figure out what was going on. A lot of people in marathon blankets. I still just speedwalked/trotted straight to the North Station. It was farther than I remembered.
When I got to North Station, all the trains on the board just said TBD, but there were no announcements about trains not running. Everyone was gathered around bar TVs watching the news. I think by that time they were saying 2 people had died and some people had lost limbs. It might sound funny, but it wasn’t ’til I got to the train station that I had the time to stop and try to find out what had happened. I had glanced at my tweets, sent a few, answered some texts that were coming in, but as I was rushing to get out of town I didn’t have time to really read stuff or check the news.
The train did come on schedule at 4pm, fortunately. Everyone on the train was silent and looking at their phones. I guess they were either following the news or contacting loved ones. My mom texted and facebooked that she was trying to call but not getting through. But basically people had seen my tweets and knew I was fine, because I had said as much right off the bat. I tweeted up a storm from the train and was contacted by the Salem Gazette for an interview. I recounted my story for them once I got home and had time to charge my phone for a minute. You can read it here: http://www.wickedlocal.com/salem/features/x196665891/Salem-runners-and-residents-appalled-by-bombings#axzz2QaQZHmAB
Then I was so hungry and I ordered a pizza and touched up my make-up and went to my birthday at Murphy’s. As you can imagine, most people opted out. But a bunch of locals did come and I’m really glad we went on and had the party, ’cause, you know, sometimes you need a drink after a rough day?
Anyways, after something like this people always say “OMG that was almost me, if only X had happened instead of Y I would have been dead!” That’s not my case. I wasn’t going to face the marathon crowds and had no intention of visiting Boylston St, and there was no danger at all on Newbury St. even though it’s only 1 block North. So there were no close calls.
And that’s how I spent my birthday.
