Sunday Morning in Rhode Island
Reflections from a Providence resident and Brown alumnus
Content warning: gun violence and school shooting
It’s snowing in Providence today. It’s a light, gentle sprinkling, but there’s enough to blanket the neighborhood. It’s serene and peaceful. All is calm, all is bright. Even knowing that it was in the forecast, it was to startling to wake up in a snowglobe after going to bed in the state we did last night. I’m sure when I go out and shovel it will feel less magical, and maybe then the reality of what our city went through yesterday will hit again. I’m going to enjoy the serenity for a few more minutes.
Mine is nowhere close to the most important voice right now. I am at most quaternary to the horrific events at Brown University last night. Nor is our community’s experience unique — as unfathomable as it is to write this sentence, this was not even the first school shooting that some of the students had endured. But mine is the voice I have to offer.
Rhode Island is a small place. It’s a close-knit community where everybody knows everybody. Twenty minutes is too far a drive. The line if you’re traveling more than a single town over is “pack a lunch.” We are about as far from Brown as possible within the Providence city limits, which means we live close enough that I have walked there.
For all the talk of ivory towers, Brown is an open campus and a major hub for the community. I’d wager that no one in Providence is more than two degrees of separation from the events of this weekend. If you don’t know a student who was locked down on campus, or someone who works at the university or within its vast apparatus, or is among the staff of the first-response groups and medical facilities who were on the scene and caring for the victims last night, then surely your neighbor does.
I went to Brown. I have walked through the cluster of academic buildings where the chaos began easily thousands of times. I studied economics, just like the students who were reviewing for their final exam when a gunman entered their classroom. I have sat in that classroom.
Every location mentioned in a news story felt like someone rifling through a file of my core memories. How could anything serious ever happen in the Sciences Library? And who calls it “the Sciences Library”? Cops with tactical gear marched across the green where we held intramural softball practice. The dorm where we always pregamed for an annual fancy party was locked down. I never thought I would be relieved to hear about people being stuck at the worst campus cafeteria.
When we moved back to Rhode Island two years ago, I made a point not to spend too much time near campus. I wanted my life in Providence to feel like a new chapter, not revisiting an old one. But in a place this small there’s only so much you can do. I have friends who live just off campus. My band’s rehearsal space and the best sandwich shop in the city are right nearby. When I drove to a recent event downtown, the closest parking spot I could find was right in front of the ceremonial campus gates. A week ago we went to an event off College Hill’s main drag, from whence you could see my freshman dorm. The police released a grainy video of the suspect fleeing after the shooting, in which he is seen rounding a street corner that I walked by just last month.
Brown’s campus is one of the most beautiful places in the world. When friends and family come to visit, we often take them for a stroll around College Hill to admire the architecture and landscaping. I wonder aloud about how I could ever have been stressed in such an idyllic place. My heart breaks for the students and staff for whom these images will forever be clouded by shadows.
We were out of town Saturday afternoon and were about to drive back to Providence when the news slowed us down. It was strange to help people navigate how concerned they should be for us. We were safe, as were all the people we immediately checked in on, and in fact we were far from both home and College Hill, but we live only a couple miles away, but that’s actually pretty far in Rhode Island terms, but in a community this close-knit a disturbance to one string vibrates throughout the whole tapestry. I gradually started shortening the story to “We’re okay.”
It was surreal to see news and rumors on social media alongside commentary from people for whom it was not personal. For what felt like hours I was glued to my phone, cycling between texting — checking in on friends who were in the immediate area, assuring loved ones that we were safe ourselves, trading I don’t know what to say with other rattled college friends — and refreshing all the feeds in fruitless quests for updates. Social media provided a blend of heartfelt expressions of vicarious concern and grief, generic condolences, and anodyne chatter about unrelated things. C’est la internet. “Ugh,” I saw someone reply to a headline about the shooting, with all the gravity and sobriety of someone finding an issue with their takeout order.
I thought back to a couple years ago, when a surprising number of people decided that a shooting near our apartment in South Philly would make for genial small talk. I wonder how many times I will have to curtly correct well-meaning people that this is not a fun topic of conversation in the weeks ahead.
We were with some of my best friends from college when we got the news. It was a strange juxtaposition of being immediately physically distant from Providence yet feeling emotionally very close to Brown. There is a worthwhile conversation to be had about the role and exclusivity of such institutions. I understand that it is an immense privilege to have gone to such a school; accordingly, I do not expect everyone to care about that the experience meant so much to me. For today, I simply ask you to trust me that it did, and that such feelings are virtually unanimous among alumni I know, of any age. Looking over at friends I first met 15 years ago while we treaded the same jagged cobblestones on which the shooter fled last night, I could not fathom how many people were feeling the words “Ever True” so deeply.
Life goes on, if we are lucky enough. The flurries are letting up and both the snow and reality are starting to sink in. I guess it’s time to shovel the sidewalk.