ganesha.isis via flickr

Over the past few days, I’ve been pro­cess­ing the hor­ri­ble things that hap­pened last week and try­ing to artic­u­late its effect on me. This is not the first instance of ter­ror attacks in the US, and sadly it prob­a­bly won’t be the last. It wasn’t even the dead­liest event that hap­pened dur­ing those few days. But the dif­fer­ence for me is that this was in my home. I was at work at a col­lege a few blocks away when the bombs went off at the Marathon.  Sev­eral of our stu­dents were injured in the blast. It wasn’t an attack hap­pen­ing some­where else this time — it was right in my backyard.

That day, I man­aged to leave just as they were lock­ing down the cam­pus and walked to North Sta­tion. The thing that stuck out to me most was how many chil­dren and fam­i­lies were on the streets try­ing to get home because the sub­way clo­sures forced them to walk. I couldn’t get the pic­tures of Cop­ley Square bathed in blood out of my head and the real­iza­tion of how many chil­dren must have wit­nessed those explo­sions first hand was sickening.

I’m an adult and I’m still pro­cess­ing this (so for­give me if I ram­ble) — I can’t begin to imag­ine how a child is going to wrap their brain around it.

This is why I write.

Because books can show us the dark­ness that breeds in the cor­ners of our world, and let us process it in a way that is safe and man­age­able. You can put a book down if you need to step away and digest. It’s a lot more dif­fi­cult when it’s some­thing hap­pen­ing in the real world and affect­ing your life right now.

Because books can illu­mi­nate that dark­ness with rays of hope. They teach us to be brave, even in the face of seem­ingly insur­mount­able odds. That while we may not under­stand many things about human nature, there are still plenty of peo­ple in the world who will run toward dan­ger to help.

Because books give us an escape from the tri­als of life. When I was in grade school, I was bul­lied, and sto­ries were my life line. If the books I write can give a child a mea­sure of free­dom and com­fort by allow­ing them to step into another world, I’ll be a very happy author.

Because words have power and res­o­nance. They can remind us of what’s truly impor­tant, even if the story has noth­ing to do with events in our own lives.

Because for me it can be cathar­tic. My first novel cer­tainly was, and I sus­pect my cur­rent WIP will be too — the main char­ac­ters are in many ways act­ing like ter­ror­ists in their fan­tasy realm, yet they’re sup­posed to be the good guys. After last week, I can no longer approach that man­u­script in the same way. I’m hope­ful work­ing through those sticky issues will help me come to terms with what hap­pened here.

This is why I write.

Why do you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.