Watertown, MA. April, 2013

This was not how I had intended to spend my Friday. I woke up to three phone messages left overnight, advising me to stay indoors because of a Boston Marathon bombing suspect with explosives and ammunition in my neighborhood. This was before my coffee. Only later in the day did the full import of the situation hit home. A shootout three blocks from my house. A full-out manhunt for the suspect still at large. Emails from friends near and far urging me to stay safe. A sheltering-in-place command forcing us to remain inside our homes. Here’s a compromised photo of the door-to-door search carried out by armed soldiers on my sleepy street. Helicopters hovering overhead, sirens, police with sniffing dogs, teams inspecting all the garbage containers on the street for pickup day. Crazy. But, mercifully, now over. 

Watertown, MA. April, 2013

This was not how I had intended to spend my Friday. I woke up to three phone messages left overnight, advising me to stay indoors because of a Boston Marathon bombing suspect with explosives and ammunition in my neighborhood. This was before my coffee. Only later in the day did the full import of the situation hit home. A shootout three blocks from my house. A full-out manhunt for the suspect still at large. Emails from friends near and far urging me to stay safe. A sheltering-in-place command forcing us to remain inside our homes. Here’s a compromised photo of the door-to-door search carried out by armed soldiers on my sleepy street. Helicopters hovering overhead, sirens, police with sniffing dogs, teams inspecting all the garbage containers on the street for pickup day. Crazy. 

Watertown, MA. April, 2013

Evidently this jogger didn’t receive the “request” for citizens to remain indoors while armed soldiers, SWAT teams, state and local police, snipers et al. patrolled the sleepy streets of my town. From my window I watched as he was forced to the pavement, detained and questioned by dozens of law-enforcement officials for an hour before being allowed to walk the block back to his home. Of course, it couldn’t have helped that he was a young man with dark eyes and dark curly hair, just like the Boston Marathon bombing suspect the manhunt was seeking that tense afternoon a month ago.

Watertown, MA. April, 2013

Evidently this jogger didn’t receive the “request” for citizens to remain indoors while armed soldiers, SWAT teams, state and local police, snipers et al. patrolled the sleepy streets of my town. From my window I watched as he was forced to the pavement, detained and questioned by dozens of law-enforcement officials for an hour before being allowed to walk the block back to his home. Of course, it couldn’t have helped that he was a young man with dark eyes and dark curly hair, just like the Boston Marathon bombing suspect the manhunt was seeking that tense afternoon a month ago.

Watertown, MA. August, 2016

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, etc. So because of the record-breaking heat and humidity, I've been staying indoors the past few days and appreciating how light plays on everyday objects and surfaces. Like the patterned sunlight that traces my etched-glass front door onto this George Nick painting that hangs over my mantel.