staking claim.

I was going to write more over the weekend and the past few days, but have been wicked sick with a cold that has now morphed into a stomach virus-y kind of thing. Apparently it's going around. March 4 was one year exactly that I got the call from Stephen O'Connor at Columbia, asking me to join their program. So much has changed in a year....and it's been rough, no doubt about that. I will be the first to admit I miss North Carolina every day. I miss the people, my friends, the weather, the community, my gym community/tri team - I miss who I am down there. I'm more relaxed, healthier and less stressed. But I am very glad I moved here. I have met some amazing people in my program and look forward to sharing the rest of my writing life with them, even after the program ends. I have met wonderful professors and read more than I ever imagined I'd be capable of. And then read some more. I remember reading Nellie's book last summer and hoping I'd get into her class, and now I'm in a second class with her and consider her an inspiring role model for my writing. These people, whom I've only been familiar with through a book, are now part of my real, everyday life. And that's been so worth it. Funny what a year can bring. Of course, that's also bittersweet - in the days leading up to that phone call, my aunt had sent me a card reminding me not to give up hope, because she knew I was getting anxious at not hearing from anywhere. And now, a year later, she's not here. A lot has changed.

March 5 was the four year anniversary of Eve Carson's murder. I've posted every year about it, but this year felt different. Maybe because I'm not in Chapel Hill, it feels a little more removed.

And of course, this weekend, Duke got an asswhoopin' from UNC. 88-70. On their home court. On Senior Night. HA!!! We lost before, and we weren't gonna lose again. Yeah Heels!!! (It's so funny to try to explain this rivalry to people up here....it's impossible, really. Let's see how they react to March Madness - somehow I doubt I'll find a bracket group going on in the School of the Arts).

Today I went downtown to Soho - it was a beautiful day, and everyone in the city seemed a little more cheerful. You know, in that surly, aloof, Manhattan kind of way. But cheerful nonetheless. Before I felt too sick (with this stomach thing, I feel sicker as the day goes on), I decided to go and walk around. Namely, I wanted to go to McNally Jackson to look at their great stash of lit mags - which was sadly less than lustrous today. McJ is a super cute bookstore on Prince St. It's an indie, and cozy, with a cafe that serves yummy coffee. Today it actually was the least crowded I've ever seen it. (Note to self:come here on a weekday morning to get a table and some work done). I wanted a job there when I moved to NY, but after email-tag, it never worked out. Sadness. I miss working at an indie bookstore SO much. Anyway, I ended up picking up a book for spring break, by Anne Roiphe, called "Art and Madness," a memoir of her writing coming-of-age. The guy who rang me up made a funny comment about it, and said, "Are you an artist?" And you know what? For the first time, without even thinking about it, I said, "I'm a writer." He replied, "Well, writers are artists!" I'm a writer. That may have been the first time I've stated that to a total stranger, without hesitating or thinking.

And damn, it felt good.

Three Years Later.

Three years ago today, Eve Carson was murdered here in Chapel Hill. I write about this every year, I know. Eve loved UNC, loved Tar Heel basketball and loved Chapel Hill. In that respect, I think it's very appropriate that tonight is the long-awaited last rivalry game of the season between UNC and Duke. I think she'll be looking down, watching, the whole time.

one day in September.

I just finished watching "Remember Me"...and if you haven't seen it, warning: this blog post might spoil it for you, so if you don't want to hear about it, don't read this! :)

It's set in New York, and watching it, I was struck once again with that feeling of GodImissManhattanremindmewhatI'mdoinghereagain. Much of the movie is set around NYU, and I remember taking my Psych GREs there my first time living in the city, touring the social work school there, eating cupcakes outside at Magnolia (before they became huge) and watching basketball at the West 4th courts. I miss the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights, and sitting on the steps at Low Library at Columbia; I miss the carousel in Central Park and all the different Starbucks' I used to frequent, from the one near West 4th near Bigelow's to the two near my old apartment [a classic 7, no less], to the one on W.82 to the one near my office at MSKCC. And Oren's Coffee Shop orange brioches from Balthazar, running through the subway to dash onto the train at the last minute before the doors close and meandering through the Union Square Greenmarket.

In these respects, Chapel Hill just isn't measuring up.

Don't get me wrong. I love how the people at the co-op in my neighborhood (yes, actually in the neighborhood proper) know me, know how I like my coffee, and even grab me fresh bagels from the back. I love how even the kids - or most of them, anyway - in my neighborhood are actually mannerly and say hi if you pass them on the sidewalk. I love how the kids ride their bikes to the elementary school in my 'hood (yes, again, in the 'hood proper) and just lean their bikes on the rack outside. I love the smallness of the public library and the fact that I run into people I know all the time at the gym, in my 'hood, at Whole Foods.......but sometimes this Northern girl needs some city time.

Anyway. Back to the movie. At the end, the main guy, Tyler, goes to his dad's office to meet with him. They've finally started to reconcile and things are looking up. Tyler's sister is at school, and the teacher writes the date on the board, September 11, 2001. And I feel like anyone who lived near NY back then, their hearts clenched when they read that. I know mine did. Tyler's dad is running late because he took the little girl to school, and is on his way to the office. Tyler walks over to the windows and then the camera pans out and looks in from the outside and pulls back.....and he's in one of the Towers. And then the screen goes black. When it comes back on, you see people running, looking up at the sky, and you just know.

9/11 is my generation's JFK assasination. We all know where we were when we heard or saw. We all have our 9/11 stories. Just like, for a certain cohort of UNC students, we all know how we heard about Eve. Ironically, I was studying the other day with a classmate of mine who grew up in California, and only recently moved to the East coast, and she said to me, "I know you probably get asked this all the time, but you lived near NY during 9/11, right? What was that like?" And as we both shared our versions of that day, I realized that yes, her experience was very different. Very similar, but also very different. It was 5:30 in the morning there. She wasn't getting ready for class and watching it unfold. She had no family in the area, knew no one in NY or who worked in the towers.

Watching "Remember Me" knocked the breath from my lungs and brought hot tears to my eyes. Because I remember the frantic dialing of the phone to my cousin, who worked at the WTC. Because I remember everyone's cell phone was dead, that my school had to set up a command center of landlines to accomodate everyone calling their parents and family. I remember the midday prayer service on the campus's front lawn that warm, clear blue-skied Tuesday, and the vigil later that night.

I remember, two years later, when I moved to Manhattan, the city-wide moment of silence at the time the first plane hit. Time stopped, traffic stopped; the city was still palpably grieving. I remember going to Ground Zero with flowers and thinking how odd it was to be staring at a mass grave. Walking in the Village one night, I found myself walking past St.Vincent's, and they still had the "missing" posters from 9/11 under glass posted under the overhang. Looking at those fliers, I wondered, as I still do, when I think of that day, if any of those people had a premonition of what was going to happen.

Or if, like me, they woke up and marveled at what a beautiful Indian Summer day it was going to be.

almost 2 years later.

Friday will mark 2 years since Eve was murdered. Those who know me know that I have been fascinated by this case since the beginning. Like I've said before, I think it's because as a young woman, I identify strongly with Eve, and I love and feel safe in Chapel Hill. The brutality of this crime is sharply juxtaposed with the place I have made my home, which makes it even more jarring. The random senselessness, the stark contrast between her vibrant life and lonely death, and the brutality shown in her killing have all made it a huge thing to process, and I think UNC is still processing, in its own way.

The day they announced that the Jane Doe was actually Eve was an unseasonably warm clear day, with a Carolina blue sky. The days that followed, right before spring break, were filled with darkness and torrential rains, like the sadness and grief were everywere. This Thursday (tomorrow), the Eve Carson Memorial Garden here at UNC will be dedicated, and the weather tomorrow, after days of gray dreariness and rain....is supposed to be sunny with a sky of beautiful Carolina blue. The name "Eve" means life. The Hebrew derivative is Chaya, which means "to live"; or Chavah, which means "breathe". I think a garden is a perfect memorial, because the beauty and life of the flowers will continue to grow and bring comfort and peace to others.

For those of you who don't know, her killers - sorry, her "alleged" killers who are on tape using her ATM card and in her SUV - were supposed to be in jail. They slipped through cracks in the probation system. One of them also murdered a Duke graduate student earlier that year - he was shot in the head in his own apartment. One of them is up for the death penalty, and the other is not, because he was only 17 at the time. I'm sorry, but if you're old enough to callously kill someone and have no remorse, you're old enough to get the death penalty. And though all murders are violent, this one - 5 shots, the last one in the temple with a shotgun, where she held her hand up to shield her face - is especially so. I'm not writing this to "sensationalize" it. I'm writing it because it shouldn't have happened. I'm writing it because it was markedly brutal, and yet because the boy was 17, that is enough to shield him from the maximum sentence? There are people doing the right thing and living their lives in a good way who don't have food or shelter, and I'm supposed to pay for these criminals to get 3 squares and a bed? What's not right with this? You mean to tell me they'll ever be "rehabilitated"? I know this sentiment isn't popular, and that's fine. It's just my opinon. But Eve's parents and brother don't get to talk to her on the phone. Her brother's future kids will never know their Auntie Eve. They walk by her empty bedroom. Their years are full of milestones - birthdays, holidays, celebrations - that she's absent from. They are adjusting to a whole new way of life. They will never be the same. They live with wondering what she was thinking, what she was feeling those last hours. Her killers may have done the crime, but it's her family who has the life sentence. How is that fair?

"Think about this moment. This day and this moment, this is the best day of our lives right now." - Eve Marie Carson

one year later.

I turned in the first couple pages of my thesis last night, and I have LOTS of work to do. It's so completely overwhelming. My topic has evolved once more, and now it is: Second Malignancies in Survivors of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Hodgkin Lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. wooo!! fun. 

I got rejected from the PhD program that I applied to at Hopkins. I was pretty bummed. Honestly, I cried like a baby when I got the rejection letter. I'm hoping I get better news soon. Very soon. 

On a more serious note, tomorrow, March 5, marks the one year anniversary of Eve Carson's murder. I don't know why she has struck a chord with me for some reason. Maybe because it's Chapel Hill, where nothing ever happens, and it could have been anyone. Maybe because her vibrant, full life is in sharp contrast with her violent, lonely death. But this time last year, she was probably doing homework, emailing friends, talking on the phone - not knowing that in a few hours, she'd be taken from her house, held at gunpoint, and according to new documents, be tortured and physically abused, and finally, killed in the middle of an intersection. She had no idea that her spring break plans would never happen, or that she wouldn't be in class on March 5. I guess the psychologist in me wonders about her roommates, how they are holding up, and the daughter, the human in me wonders about her parents and brother. I often think about them, and what their life has been like since receiving that phone call. I think of what must have been going through her mind when she was taken - if she knew in her heart that she wouldn't make it back home, or if she truly believed they would let her go. I think of how scared she must have been, but also how brave she was to run. It is all truly beyond the scope of my brain. It doesn't seem real, still, in some weird way. The violence contrasts so much with my view of Chapel Hill, with the life I have created here. The fact that we got an email on March 5, notifying us about an unidentified female's body that was found -- as one of my friends said over lunch that day, "This is like, if your roommate didn't come home last night, you'd better call us....." But none of us really thought it was a UNC student....things like that don't happen here....yeah. 

But on March 5, I think Eve should be remembered for a life richly lived. I read about her and I am in awe of how much living, how much life she lived in her 22 years. She was truly present in her life, and incredibly giving and accomplished. I think it would do us all good to remember that lesson - that life is meant to be lived, because no one ever promised us tomorrow. 

This is one of the last, if not last, pictures of Eve, taken 2 days before her murder. 

I wish her family and friends strength and love and resilience, and I hope they find some solace in knowing that while she was alive, she truly did live. 

"Study hard and work hard. Play hard. Keep an open mind. Take pride in yourself, in your school, in what you produce and the way you help others. If you make mistakes, make sure you learn from them, and never give up -- stay strong to the finish." -- Eve Marie Carson

and the final semester starts.......

It feels like forever since I've blogged on here.....my friend Carrie came in last Tuesday, so I didn't have time to post. We did a lot of things Chapel Hill-esque......we had yummy cupcakes at Sugarland, walked on Franklin St, went to the Carolina brewery, shopped at Cameron's, had brunch at A Southern Season....we also saw two movies (Benjamin Button and Gran Torino). It was a tiring week, but it was great seeing her again. 

There was also a very weird experience for me while she was here -- and I'm not sure people can understand unless they were in Carolina last year. So, I bank at Wachovia. And the bank near me is right next door to a Bank of America. More specifically, the Bank of America that Eve Carson was driven to the night she was killed. Many times, when I've hit the ATM at night after babysitting, it's crossed my mind that she was driven through that ATM, most likely terrified and planning how she could run. But Carrie needed money, and she does her banking there, so I drove through the same exact ATM drive-through that Eve did. And for some reason, that really, really weirded me out. It was spooky and I didn't like it. Then, I guess because of that, she showed up in my dream that night. I dreamt I was driving with her - she was in my passenger seat - and she kept telling me to find her toothbrush, that it'll explain everything. It was very weird. I woke up thoroughly spooked. 

Classes start tomorrow, but thankfully I only have one class on Mondays, and not even every Monday -- Neurotraumatic Injuries in Sports Medicine. It should be a neat class. Thinking about the semester, though, is kind of nerve-wracking. I have 3 classes plus my thesis, research work, and finding out about PhD programs. If I don't get into a PhD program, I know that it will absolutely crush me. Crush me. But to start off the semester, I got a new messenger bag to carry my books -- one that most people would probably NEVER expect me to carry. I'm usually a Vineyard Vines tote gal, or a North Face backpack, if I have a long day ahead of me.....but I found the tokidoki Le Sportsac bags, and fell in love with them. Something about the fun prints made me smile, and I think just looking at the bags brightens your day. Check out tokidoki here. 

I had a thesis topic - AYA cancer survivorship - but I'm feeling kind of saturated with cancer lately.....so I'm not sure I want to do that so much.....but I can't really see me doing anything else but something in oncology. I'm thinking maybe doing something in integrative oncology, which incorporates complementary and alternative therapies with traditional Western medicine. I'm not a total believer in everything, which could be kind of interesting. 

giving thanks

So here I am, in NJ for Thanksgiving, and thinking about all the things I am grateful for in the past year. Oddly, I'm also thinking about Eve Carson. It was her birthday last Wednesday, and I just keep thinking, what are her parents doing? How are they surviving, day to day? What are the holidays like for them this year? How do they wake up every day? It strikes me as incredibly heart-wrenching. This is a young woman who should not have had her life taken from her at such a young age - especially not in the brutal way that she did. I often wonder what she was doing last year, and whether she would have ever thought she wouldn't live to the next Thanksgiving. In my Research Methods class, one group did a project on students' perceptions of safety, and one of my friends mentioned the "Eve Carson effect" on our perceptions of how safe we are in Chapel Hill. Without even having to discuss it, we all knew what she meant by that. And that made me very sad. So much can change in a year, a month, a day, an hour. As Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking, life changes in the instant, the ordinary instant. Which is why I am grateful and thankful for so much this year, especially all the little things. 

I am thankful for: my blood family. my "chosen" family. the health of people I love. friends. mentors. my wonderful baby nephew (who will always be a baby to me, no matter how old he gets!). sunshine. warm sheets and cold pillows. smiles. phone calls from long distance friends. gingerbread lattes on cold days. the warm golden amber of autumn leaves. serendipity. synchronicity. good books. breakfasts with Morgan. faith. hope. courage. the wonderful kids I babysit for and have babysat for - Luke, MJ, Rachel, Bryce, Chase, Harrison, Pilar. gummy toothless smiles and incoherent phone calls from these kids. hugs. kindness. prayer. life. the wonderful summer full of opportunities I had at MSKCC. the amazing people I met at Memorial, including my supervisor. all the bloggers and people I've met through blogspot. 

On a lighter note, everyone should pick up the December issue of Elle magazine. I am in it! I reviewed books for them and my book review got printed! So go out now, and buy it, please. Also, if you want to donate to my Avon Breast Cancer 2-Day Walk, please let me know - in less than a month, I have raised $250, but I need to raise at least $1800 -- my goal is to raise as much as I possibly can, though. 

I wish everyone a very happy and healthy thanksgiving! 

Eve Marie Carson, 11/19/85 - 3/5/08

Wow, 3 posts in one day - but not for the right reasons, I'm afraid. This post is about Eve. Eve Marie Carson. I'm posting about her because her autopsy and search warrants were released today, and like a horribly bad car accident, I can't stop looking. If this will upset you, I'd suggest you stop reading this post. I'm posting about this because I need to process this; I need to figure out how another person could cause so much harm and pain to another. It doesn't seem real to me. I'm posting about it to recognize the ugliness of what happened that night, so it doesn't get lost in the niceties and excuses like, "society is responsible" and "oh what a shame those two fell through the system." In all of this, an innocent person was brutally killed for no reason, and we shouldn't forget that. 

Initially, it was thought that Eve was carjacked, since she would often go out at odd hours to do work. Now it came out that the confidential informant - the person who identified one of the shooters - told police back in March that she had spoken to one of the shooters and he said the two of them entered her house through an open door. If this seems crazy to you, let me explain - down South, it's different. People really DO leave their doors unlocked when they're home and up and about. At first I thought it was weird, but I got used to it because it was so nice. But anyway, they entered through an open door and forced her to leave with them. They drove her in her own car to an ATM and forced her to give them her PIN number. Over the next 2 days they took out about $1400. According the the informant, they were going to kill her anyway after she gave them her PIN number. This is when that picture at the ATM was taken, more than an hour before she was killed. 

Supposedly, they think she tried to escape and run, and she was shot 5 times by 2 separate weapons - a shotgun and a .25 caliber pistol. The autopsy report lists 6 gunshot wounds, because horrifically, she tried to shield her face with her hand and the bullet - a shotgun bullet - went through her hand and grazed her temple. She was also shot in the cheek, the shoulder, the upper arm, and the buttock. Both men - boys - shot her. The autopsy said no single shot was fatal, and I am horrified to think that she suffered a great deal. You can actually read the actual pdf of the autopsy, and maybe it was naive of me, but I read it, and it shocked and horrified me even further. The details of the shotgun wounds and bullet wounds, the entry and exit points.....the little details, like the white paper bracelet she had around her wrist.....and call me stupid, but I had no idea what a shotgun bullet entailed - the little pellets inside that spray everywhere upon impact....I had to ask my roommate what they meant when they wrote "birdshot pellets". The injuries to her brain and lungs and hand - my G-d, no one should have to suffer that. They don't think she was sexually assaulted, but some police want DNA samples because they believe a sexual assault "of an unknown nature" may have occurred. 

They found her lying on her back, with one arm bent behind her head. Eve, a woman who was so well-known, and so popular, so social, died alone in the street, without family or friends or a hand to hold. Someone who led such a brilliantly colorful life died in such a terrifying, dark way. I cannot imagine the thoughts that must have ran through her head in those last hours, those last moments where she must have realized what was going to happen, when she made that brave decision to run. I cannot imagine the grief of her family, the gutwrenching helplessness to know that your child died alone in an intersection. It makes me ill just thinking about it. 

So why am I posting this? We study maternal-child health. Eve was someone's child - is someone's child. We don't study the maternal-child relationship, oddly, but it is one worth looking at. What happens when that relationship is severed by loss? How does that color one's life? How does one rebuild and go on? Do you? Can you? Life, as Joan Didion once wrote, changes in the instant, the ordinary instant. And we're never the same. 

I love UNC. I love the Quad in the spring and the arboretum in the fall. I love the Pit on a sunny day and Graham Memorial Lounge on a rainy one. I love Roy all the time. But what makes UNC truly special is not our beautiful campus, our distinguished reputation, or even our basketball team. It's us - the student body - who make UNC what it is. - Eve Carson

no day but today

Being that my days revolve around cancer, and even when I'm not at internship, my brain seems not to notice that and I'm either reading about cancer or trying to figure out a research topic, death was sure to come up sooner or later. And sometimes, it just hits you, that all you have is today, no one promises you tomorrow. And once you realize that, and (try to, anyway) live in the moment, everything looks different. The crowded, noisy subway car becomes full of untold stories, the refreshing coldness of a Diet Coke on a hot day seems like the best thing ever, and you hug people a little harder, a little longer. 

"This day, and this moment, this is the best day of our lives right now." - Eve Carson, 11/19/85 - 3/5/08