Washington DC: A Love Affair, Part One

My affair with DC began nearly a decade ago, when as an undergrad I was invited to lobby my Oregon senators and representatives about an environmental issue. I recall my terror as I lugged my suitcase from the metro and walked, wide eyed, towards the street corner where my hosts were to fetch me. I had no idea how safe, or unsafe the city was and at that time I had never flown anywhere alone.

When I was shown to my room, on the second story of a tall and narrow row house, I was greeted by a random array of stored items all of which watched over the bare twin mattress where I was to sleep.

The following week was a grueling blur of early mornings filled with seminars, followed by long days of walking the capitol in my best “big girl clothes.” I was at the heart of our nation, at the steps of the Supreme Court, in front of the Capitol Building and I could feel the power and influence that shaped the democratic ideals of this nation. However I was far too busy to actually get to see any of the cultural attributes of the city. The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian buildings stood maddeningly near promising rich educational experience that I had been informed would change me life, but I lacked the time to make the short excursion.

One evening, exhausted, I escaped a social obligation involving wine, crackers and political somebodies, and found myself in the Hirshorn Sculpture Garden. The guard at the gate must have thought I was nuts as I collapsed on my knees on the grass and began to cry. I was so relieved to be away from the political jargon, the oppressive agendas, the intensity of the capitol experience. That and I was seeing, touching and yes, taking photos of, sculptures that I had studied in school. There they were, statues by Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore, along with other beauties I had never before seen.

I returned to Dupont Circle, where I was staying and had a delicious curry at a dingy corner dive, all the while updated with the ever ready CNN news stream pouring into the room from the television over the bar.

After, I dragged myself back to my crowded room, dodging drunken Sierra Club employees, laughing uproariously over their own party politics. I threw myself into my sleeping bag on my naked twin mattress and finally I slept while visions of what I might be able to see in DC “someday” danced behind my eyes.