Wouldn't it be Nice

Shooting at Virginia Tech

In "Vindictively American," an essay in her book Take the Cannoli, Sarah Vowell writes about her experience studying abroad in the Netherlands in 1992. When the Rodney King riots broke out, she was glued to the TV, unable to look away from the news reports, even after her European roommate declared herself disgusted by the show of American violence. Vowell explains that she was struck not just by sadness, but by an incredibly powerful desire to be there, to be experiencing that moment with the rest of America instead of in a pretty garret apartment in Europe, divided by an ocean and a lack of context. She listened to "Wouldn't it Be Nice" by the Beach Boys 29 times that day, crying and wishing she was home.

Getting ready for class this morning, I wandered into the living room to find my roommates watching a news report about the shootings at Virginia Tech. The Australian anchorwoman read her report, the screen flashed to scenes of ambulances rushing from the campus and distraught students milling around in confusion, and then the reporter switched to a story about food poisoning at a local retirement community. I understood that the news of a school shooting in Virginia didn't effect the lives of the average Melbournian. Maybe they thought it was tragic, or maybe some saw it as another sign of America's decline into senseless violence, and maybe some of them didn't even register the story as they ate their breakfast, but I was suddenly filled with resentment at their ability to move on from this news.

I don't go to Virginia Tech. I don't know anyone who goes to Virginia Tech. I might know people who know people who go there, but I won't find out until the college grapevines start getting busy as people get this news. I am an American, though, and I am a college student. On some level, I share a set of experiences and a view point with the 33 students who died and the thousands more who attend Virginia Tech, and the realization that I was half-way around the world when this happened is sort of breaking my heart. Like Vowell, I was hit by this desperate need to be home, to be interacting with this event through more than just the news and the internet. Even the email sent to all Emory students from President Wagner, extending condolences to the families of the victims and reminding us that college is no protection against the horrors of the world, made me miss America like a hole in my heart.

I haven't been paralyzed by this, or anything. I'm still going to classes (I'm writing this during a break in a computer lab), taking notes, trying to pay attention while my mind wanders - the usual patterns I go through every Tuesday. I have research to do for a paper I haven't started that is due tomorrow, and I need to make a grocery list. In the scheme of things, in the long story of my life, this isn't effecting me very much. When I'm struggling tonight with this stupid paper, though, trying to concentrate in my bedroom, I might put on my headphones and start listening to some Bruce Springsteen, or maybe even the Beach Boys, and think about Virginia, Sarah Vowell, and what it means to be American.