Flying In
DC. The eternal city. For me. Mainly it’s the buildings. The mall. The monuments. The Capital. The White House. I’ve come here since childhood when we lived in Bethesda. I was stationed at Quantico in ‘68. I walked the mall during the Poor People’s March. Flying in yesterday, I could see the Washington Monument out the window. I was moved again. It’s a place of history, and I love history.
When I come here, of course, I also see the people. I can feel all the presidents who’ve walked or rode in these streets. And I think of all the things we’ve done in the name of the people, and there are things I celebrate and things I loathe. But I have lived long enough to know that from one generation to the next we hardly recognize each other. And when we do look back, we see what we want to see.
And I also know history works out in mysterious ways and no civilization lasts forever and we only know for ourselves a tiny fraction of what our civilization is or will become. No dinosaur saw the big picture. No stromatolite knew where life would go. So, we’re left to make the best of what we have, and today I’m off to take my grand-daughter to basketball camp.