...

I want to say something about the shootings at Virginia Tech, but I don't even know where to begin. I found out from my dear friend, who goes by the name Belgium here (and whose faux ignorance on this site is not true to the real-life version of him). Belgium is a student in the MFA program there, and I worried the entire time I knew he was on campus, waiting to be evacuated. He's home now, and safe, but Jesus Christ.

I just don't even know where to begin with it at all.

*tm

Comments

[kari]

i know what you mean.

[belgium]

Don't let TM's comments fool you-- I really am as dumb as I let on. Or at least I've felt this way all week. One of my students is dead and I'm dreading going back to class. The young woman was bright, cheerful, thoughtful. Like I've been telling everyone, she's the type of person you'd want as a best friend, or the type of woman you'd be grateful for one of your children to become.

I've been playing a lot with my daughter lately, thinking how the parents of the young woman who died must have been playing with their daughter 16 years or so ago.

In one sense, there's no way to move on from a tragedy so large. Yet I lived in Arlington during 911 and was very fearful that my brother had lost his life in the World Trade Center. At the time, I worked in one of the tallest buildings in Arlington and as we were scurrying through the internet trying to find out news about New York, I looked out the window and realized the Pentagon was in flames.

In Blacksburg, before the true scope of the tragedy was known, I showed up for my 10:10 comp class and was ticked off that only three out of 23 students showed up for the class. I had a good lesson plan for the day, centered largely on proper MLA in-text citation requirements-- things that they NEEDED to know for an upcoming writing assignment. Although I heard ambulances and police sirens as I walked to my class, it really didn't dawn on me that something horrible happened. Then came the announcement that we had to remain in the building.

One of the three students who came to class that moring is an EMT. Very quickly, he tuned on the local EMT response signals on his computer.

"We need as many helicopters as we can get," an officer said over the radio.

A moment passed.

"Negative," someone responded. The region was sustaining 50-mile per hour winds. "All helicopters are grounded."

Very soon thereafter, another person spoke on the radio-- "We're performing triage at Norris Hall."

My student, the EMT, turned white. "That means there's more casualites than there are responders."

As I said, I'm as dim as I let on, but at that moment I realized the tragic proportion of what was happening.

What's hard now is the concentration level. Everyone's feeling numb. We're trying to draw out the lessons. For those of us who are creative writers, we're trying to grapple with how to deal with this in our own work-- and we're feeling guilty for thinking about how we can personally make use of this situation in our own work.

After 911, nearly all my friends made changes in their lives. Some people we knew chose to move out of the city. Another person, a single man who chose not to date for several years, posted an online personals ad. Other people chose subtler ways to modify their lives-- my best friend, who had always wanted to have a dog but feared that he could not be a "responsible" pet owner-- bought a laborador retriever. The dog, Jack Daniels, is doing fine, as is my friend.

My response, and it took me a few years to navigate to where it became a full-fledged response, was to ditch the job that I had ever since graduating from college in 1986. I enrolled in an MFA program. Originally, I wanted to study in another city but declined my acceptance there because I was worried about the crime in that city. Ironically.

Just like it took a few years to really start seeing good 911 fiction, I recognize that it might take some time for any of us to truly build from what we experienced. That said, Nikki Giovanni's poem at Tuesday's convocation rocked.

http://americaabroad.tpmcafe.com/blog/oldengoldendecoy/2007/apr/17/nikki_giovanni_we_are_virginia_tech

On Monday, I finished the day by questioning the efficacy of my life in letters. As you might gather, I'm, um, "under-published" and it has been a constant and consderable leap of faith to think that some day I might be, um, less "under-published." And what, after all can a short story really accomplish in a world full of pain and suffering?

But Nikki G. spoke to me-- the arts are a building block. The buildings on campus here are largely constructed from a very distinct dolomite limestone that is know quarried locally. This type of rock is known affectionately around here as "Hokie Stone." An on-campus tribute (and there are many going on) involved the laying down of 32 Hokie Stones on the Drillfield, which is what we call our quad. Each building has to begin with something-- a patch of land, some cement and stones. And workmen. This is going to sound, well, hokie, but no building is ever truly complete. Even those that have been demolished live on in photographs and memories.

I'm looking forward to telling my class on Monday my memories (and it's surprising how many fond memories you draw upon from just knowing someone for a few months). Several of her students have also told me they'd like to share their impressions. From there, we shall build.