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I guess Saturday was the calm before the storm.
But then Washington's "storm" turned into an inch of snow
that melted by noon, when the sun came out and people started walking by
my window in short-sleeved shirts. I stole a line from Todd and slipped it
into an email to Joel, about longing to get away with the level of accuracy
we expect from weather forecasters in my own professional life.
But Saturday, yes Saturday, was filled with hazy sunshine and newly
anointed crocuses budding up from the awakening earth. I rushed out in the
late afternoon to the Mall to snap photographs of teenage Texans in
front of the Washington Monument and write a letter to Landon on the
West Capitol steps. It all had a certain symmetric ring.
On my way back toward the Einstein Memorial on Constitution Avenue and
21st Street, where I had parked my car, I detoured through the Vietnam
Memorial and walked its narrow path, dutifully somber. On the Western side,
further away and above the crowd, I watched an enormous group of school
children dressed in identical canary yellow rain slickers descend into the
memorial in uneven bunches. Three here, a group of five following close
behind. I could see all that yellow reflected in the black marble and
I watched mesmerized, my mind snapping impossible photographs so that
I would never forget. |
