I’m lucky to have friends who live in many different places. Some are in London, others in NYC. A large concentration of people I love lives in Kyiv, though many are displaced because of the war. There are friends in Oslo, in Dubai, in Cambodia.
And all of them keep asking me the same question:
“Why the hell are you sticking around DC?”
It’s a fair question in the sense that I’ve lived on the East Coast for more time than I’ve cared to, and I sometimes wonder if inertia and fear are holding me back from moving someplace new. I’ve always preferred to be light on my feet, after all. Sometimes, the very phrase “Eastern seaboard” seems to weigh me down. And don’t get me started on how humid our summers get.
Of course, that’s not the real reason anyone asks that question. It’s just that Washington DC has the reputation of being boring. And that, however, is not correct.
It’s true that DC is Hollywood for ugly people, as the saying goes. I don’t think looks are taken very seriously here, and if you’re too cute, you might be met with suspicion (“are you a spy?”). This can be weird, but this can also be refreshing.
Ugly or not, people in DC and the surrounding areas know how to party. They’re just not necessarily conspicuous about it. There are security clearances to worry about.
Most importantly, DC is a place of people with passions — both those who move here, and those who’ve grown up in the area. A lot of people always have something they’re excited about, or some crusade they are on. This may be daunting to some people, but it thrills me greatly. The capital of the United States of America is THE place to meet people with a cause. Or several causes.
As someone who’s passionate about national security and the fate of the republic in general, I find myself very happy here. Other times, I am very sad. Or even outraged. The one thing I’m not is bored.
I don’t think I really fit in around here, but I actually don’t mind that part. Not fitting in means that you are constantly observing, a good position to be in as a writer.
DC has its own magic, though. It is a very haunted place. Readers of Lincoln in the Bardo might know what I am talking about.
That ghostly air is swept by the wind across the Potomac and into northern Virginia. You hear it whispering when you stare at the Great Falls or sit hunched over a book at an Eastern Market pub. It’s the spirit of a young and unquiet nation. It is singular.
Last summer, I made the difficult but exciting decision to move across said Potomac and into NoVA, where life is quieter and there are fewer gunshots at night (violent crime in DC has begun to improve, but there’s a long way to go). This allows me to love this strange place even more, to be honest. I have a space of calm from which I can contemplate the landscape of the heart of the nation.
America is my adopted motherland and maybe that’s the reason why I remain besotted with its capital, even as I complain about the traffic and the prices just like everyone else does.
Or maybe it’s because I have an aversion to many of the things that are considered cool. If it’s between cool and important, which is a false dichotomy of sorts, but nevertheless, I gravitate toward the important. I am a sentimental person who doesn’t know the first thing about what it means to be cool.
There is an amazing lull between the Cherry Blossom Festival and the start of regular tourist season, when cool air still sweeps in from the Potomac and women put on shawls in the twilight hours. It’s probably the best time of the year to be here, and it’s so gorgeous that it hurts.
Every year, when it rolls around, I seem to dream about my shoulder blades sprouting wings. I think a lot of other people here have strange and hopeful dreams around this time, but we just don’t tell anyone.
No one wants to end up on Overheard in DC.
Image: R M