January 13, 2011

I lived in Tucson, Arizona, for nearly a decade. I originally moved to Tucson to attend grad school at The University of Arizona. I would often bike or take a bus past University Medical Center, and for more than four years, I worked near the intersection of Oracle and Ina.

Even though I now live about 1,000 miles away, even though I was not there when it happened, the senseless mass shootings on Saturday January 8, 2011, really shook me. Fortunately, no one I know personally was at the Safeway store when six people were killed and fourteen other injured by Jared Loughner. Nonetheless, the entire situation has troubled me ever since it occurred.

I could easily identify part of why I was so troubled by the shootings. First, innocent people, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, were peacefully participating in one of the most basic tenants of American government: An elected official was meeting with her constituents to hear from them firsthand and take their concerns and their ideas back to Congress to help shape and improve legislation to help shape and improve our country. Second, the senseless violence occurred while people were doing something which is so routine that many of us probably never think much about it: buying groceries.

Yet there was something else which troubled me, something which I could not put into words until today: Tucson is no longer just a place for most people. Thinking back over recent history, we now talk about events “before Columbine” and “after Columbine,” “before Fort Hood” and “after Fort Hood,” “before Virginia Tech” and “after Virginia Tech...” No longer is Virginia Tech simply a place of higher education. No longer is Fort Hood simply a military base. No longer is Columbine simply a Denver suburb.

Now, to most of America, Tucson is no longer a place. This is already being heard in how the pundits talk, which is what drew me to this realization today. Already, commentators are speaking about “after Tucson.”

In President Obama’s address at the memorial service following the tragic shooting rampage, he made us all aware of America’s democracy through the eyes of the tragedy’s youngest victim, nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green. That was a very touching concept, one which I suspect most Americans felt very deeply and understood inherently. I have been thinking about that throughout the day, and combined with the discussion of “after Tucson” in the media, I believe that we all need to, somehow, return to a state where there is no more “before Columbine,” no more “before Fort Hood,” no more “before Virginia Tech.”

...no more “before Tucson.”

It is human nature to find comfort in places: the bed in which one so often sleeps, the home which has provided shelter from blazing sunlight and torrential rain and bitter cold, the town or city where one works and plays and shows off to visitors. Tucson is currently not just a place, it is a tragic idea. We need to all return to a mentality, a comfort zone, in which Tucson is simply a place.

Perhaps this piece will help others to think of Tucson as simply a place once again. I had actually begun working on this on January 5, 2011, three days before the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, three days before the tranquility of a city I once called home was shattered in a rain of bullets, three days before six people, including young Christina Green, were murdered. Perhaps coincidentally, when I had originally conceived of this piece, I planned to call it “Child’s Play,” but within a day, as I continued to compose and exchange one instrument sound for another, I knew that “Child’s Play” was not a fitting title.

One week later, as President Obama was addressing the Tucson community, I still did not know what title would be best for this piece, even though I had actually completed it over the weekend. His eloquence in speaking about Christina’s view of the world definitely entranced me, and as he spoke, I kept thinking of the untitled piece.

Now I know. We adults know that America’s democracy is very important in our lives, in the same way that having a place is very important in our hearts. Young Christina was beginning to recognize the importance of America’s democracy, but even if she could not yet express it in words, she was certainly old enough to recognize the importance of Tucson as simply a place.

To Christina, Tucson is still a place, and now the rest of America needs to again think of Columbine and Fort Hood and Virginia Tech and Tucson not as locations of senseless tragedy, but as places.