Today, Memorial Day falls on Memorial Day — May 30, that is. Perhaps it is doubly Memorial Day, then, Memorial Day x 2.
I looked for photos of Washington, D.C., to celebrate the occasion and came up with these from a nighttime visit to the monuments with work colleagues in October of 2018.
Notice how the emblems of our democracy shine out as darkness surrounds them. Perhaps a fitting metaphor for this day, this year.
A few days ago I met a friend for lunch in D.C. I parked in the Union Station garage and made my way past the old neighborhood: New Jersey and 1st Avenue, along E Street to the National Building Museum, where I stole a glance at those stunning columns.
From there to Chinatown, bustling again, though with way too many boarded-up stores. The restaurant we chose was still in business, though, and lively, to boot.
After that, a stroll down the Mall and over to the Botanic Garden and a cool outdoor exhibit/structure made of brush, a human-sized nest that kids were running in and out of.
I love the views of the Capitol you get from the Garden. It humanizes and softens the building, makes it seem more a part of the landscape. Which, of course, it certainly is.
I’ve visited Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms a couple dozen times through the years, but this is the first time I’ve seen them through the lens of a good camera.
Though I am a novice photographer, I’m an expert blossom-navigator. I can slip through crowds, skip over puddles and keep moving through the inevitable hordes of tourists.
Yesterday the Tidal Basin gave back with picture-perfect weather, peak-bloom blossoms, and the picnickers, strollers and flower-lovers that made this the place to be in the DMV.
The cherry trees are calling … and I’d like to answer them in person. It’s been three years since they were open for business — a funny way to describe them but true since the trees that encircle the Tidal Basin can be (and were) cordoned off.
It’s different when you have a perishable to-do in mind, something that won’t stay put if you wait too long. The cherry trees are a perfect example. They’re in peak bloom now, but all it will take is a hard rain or a brisk breeze and they will be but a shadow of their current selves. And even without those, there’s only so long they will last.
Unlike other things I mean to do then, visiting the cherry blossoms has an all-too-real expiration date.
So I’m looking at my schedule and hurrying up my homework … and with any luck I’ll visit soon.
A walk through Georgetown before class last evening renewed my hankering for Lenten roses. What creamy beauties they are, how full-bodied compared with their early spring cousins the snowdrop and winter aconite. I’ve wanted to plant Lenten roses (also known as hellebores) for years, but now I’m on a mission.
Of course, last night I was being swayed by the excellent company the plants were keeping, by the environment in which I spotted them. A late winter afternoon, sun slanting low over cobblestones, grand houses standing guard over a neighborhood I could walk through for hours and never tire of.
Even a dandelion would look good in that setting.
Yesterday, I was a walker in the city, not the suburbs. I began at 18th and L, deep in the business district. But that’s not where I stayed.
The Mall was my destination, heading toward the Capitol and my former walking route, site of numerous lunchtime strolls.
The monuments were there, glinting in a warm winter sun. The White House, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries building.
What was missing, what always seems to be missing these days, was the people. Empty thoroughfares make good straightaways, but what I would give if this scene were clogged with tourists and pickup soccer games and pale office workers out for a noontime jog.
Tomorrow, my humanities class moves from online to in-person, so I’ll drive to Georgetown again, as I was doing last fall. I’m looking forward to meeting classmates in person, though of course there will be the nervousness of any new venture.
I took a trial run of sorts on Friday when I visited campus for a required Covid test. That was accomplished in minutes, which left plenty of time for a stroll around campus and through the neighborhood.
Flurries were flying as I walked the brick sidewalks and dreamed myself into the Federal townhouses. There was the buff pink with dark green shutters, a stately corner manse, a teal-shuttered beauty with the view of Georgetown Visitation.
It’s a tough choice … but I’ll take one of those mansions on Prospect, one with a river view, please.
It had been a while since I sat in a concert hall. There was Wolftrap last summer, always fun, but open-air, even when you have seats.
Last night was the whole experience: the Kennedy Center itself, the approach and the entry, picking up the tickets, walking down the long hall, and then, in the hall, the chandeliers above and instruments tuning below. There were the black ties and tails, a hush when the lights went down.
And then, there was this young man with a clarinet, swaying with it, bending with it, reminding me of James Galway on the flute, that same elfin charm.
The clarinetist, Lin Ma, played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto as if he was born to do it, so softly in parts of the Adagio that I felt myself lean toward the stage in order to hear it better. When he finished, the audience leapt to their feet.
Last night’s concert was not only all Mozart; it was all late-vintage Mozart, every piece written in 1791, the last year of the composer’s short life. And it ended with this: bliss.
Vincent Van Gogh
The Van Gogh immersive experience begins as soon as you walk in the door and are greeted with a wall of sunflowers, or, I should say, a larger-than-life Van Gogh-like depiction of them. A few steps away is a bust of the painter that morphs from black and gray shadows to the swirled blues and lavenders of his flowers.
You pass a re-creation of the room at Arles, complete down to the washstand and window and hat hanging from a peg on the wall. Take a photo of the room and you’ve created a masterpiece.
There are videos on the artist’s life, his hospitalization, self-mutilation and eventual suicide. And there is music: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, something by Debussy, others I couldn’t place, all soaring and emotive.
But the best is saved for last, when you walk into the final gallery and find yourself a part of the paintings. You stand or sit or recline on the floor while the art comes alive around you, pages slide off easels, stars explode in the night, and a hundred sunflowers bloom against a lapis lazuli sky.
Even watching the trailer sends chills down my spine, so I will probably not be watching “The Exorcist” this Halloween. But tonight I will be attending class right next to the “Exorcist Stairs,” the Washington, D.C. landmark where the movie’s final scene was filmed.
In this scene, Father Miller, who’s attempting to rid the 12-year-old Regan of the demon, falls from Regan’s window down these narrow steps to his death. According to Culture Trip, the stuntman assigned this task had to fall down the stairs twice to perfect the scene.
I found the stairs a couple weeks ago after walking past them earlier in my rush to get to class. But once a classmate told me where they were, I made a point to walk them the next week.
I’m happy to say that I did not fall. But I did huff and puff a little. And I definitely felt a sinister vibe. The stairs are steep and creepy, just as billed, and apparently, if you try to count them, you’ll never come up with the same number twice.
