[Elspode]

Impressions of Washington DC, Day One:

1. This city is positively teeming with people. People of every physical description are everywhere, walking, driving, riding bicycles, riding scooters, hawking wares from the sidewalk, wheeling children about in prams, going, being, doing. It is utterly unlike anyplace I have ever been before in terms of sheer numbers and activity level. So far, my face to face experiences with everyone have been uniformly civil and pleasant, and for that, I am grateful.

2. Traffic and street layouts are insane. The street grids make the highways look mundane and normal by comparison. Getting anywhere from anywhere else requires gyrations that are utterly non-intuitive. Even our GPS system was taken aback, delivering guidance in what I swear was a confused, hesitant manner. There is no readily apparent North or South, Left or Right. Just when you think you know where you are, where you've been, or where you're going, they throw a traffic circle at you wherein as many as six streets converge in a maelstrom of vehicular chaos. I visualize the people who had to figure out the traffic signals and pedestrian walk light sequencing as being wizened, slightly crazed mystics, laboring in a dungeon somewhere, using equal measures of Art, Magick and Science to produce a result that barely keeps from bringing the entire city to its knees. Oh...and when the light turns green – GO! GO NOW! GO RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!! If you don't, a horn will honk from behind you in .5 seconds or less, or a car will roar around you, and veer wildly into your lane at breakneck speed...while every other car around you is standing still.

3. Everything is under construction. Let me reiterate...*EVERYTHING* is under construction. If you go 500' without seeing a building being restored, an enormous foundation being dug, a multiple lane closure, or ancient masonry being tuckpointed, braced and rejuvenated...you most definitely aren't in Washington DC. Even the zoo had four or five areas in different phases of construction or restoration. There are dozens and dozens of miles of obviously brand spanking new umpty-lebben lane highways and bridges that clearly cost billions upon billions of dollars, and still everywhere you go more are being constructed. Staggering. The scale and breadth of construction in this town is mind boggling. As we drove past the Washington Monument (under construction), I looked to the horizon beyond and was distracted by the biggest crane I have ever seen in my life, looming like an alien thing over the Capital rooftops. If it had spouted a mile long tongue of fire, I would not have been even slightly nonplussed.

4. Sirens. Driving inside the Beltway, there was a police car, fire engine, or ambulance on an emergency call - approximately every five minutes or less - for which we had to move out of the way. This is no small feat in the ubiquitous traffic. Most disquieting (see what I did there?) is the fact that you cannot tell from which direction the siren is coming...the sound reverberates off of all the buildings and surrounds you in a non-directional blanket of cacophony. At one point, a hook and ladder truck screamed up to a park area (in the center of a traffic circle wherein six streets intersected, of course), and pulled into the inside lane as the rig commander said, over the PA, “Is anyone in this park sick? Hold up your hand if you are sick! Someone in this park called for an ambulance. (Pause) Does anyone in this park have a friend who is sick? Hold up your hand.” And then, on cue, an ambulance screamed into the traffic circle from one of the six directions, and we had to stay out of it's way.

5. Finally, something that was intensely personal for me. I have wanted to see this city since I was a child. Tangible pieces of every bit of Americana I have ever been taught, shown, read or heard about since I was a wee laddie, reside here. At the moment of my first real life sighting of the Washington Monument, The Jefferson Memorial, The Tidal Basin, The Capitol Building...everything became somewhat surreal and ethereal for me. It was almost as if my mind, upon seeing the reality of structures that had heretofore only been photos in my experience, retreated to a familiar and comfortable place of its own making. I literally squeed a couple of times. “The Jefferson Monument! The Capitol Dome! The Mall! Squeeeee!” For me, it all comes down to this: the Reality of this nation may have dissolved into greedy corporate proxy wrangling for money. Half of our legislators may be pandering to religious zealots and the other half drooling in their shoes. Our People may be lazy, spoiled, inarticulate, uneducated, disillusioned and stressed...but the symbols of our ethos still shine gloriously. The concepts represented by these great structures and the memorials honoring those who brought forth this nation still endure in my heart and mind and spirit, and I am giddy to be here.