DC dreaming

“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.” American Constitution

Lovemobile in general anaesthesia, warm home with the Brovets in Raleigh, Robyn and I headed up to Washington DC in a normal automobile. Landing deep in the travail of Thanksgiving highway gridlock we got to the Mall late in the afternoon as dusk on a wintry day fell. Our walking route took in the milestones of this great human experiment that is the USA. Washington, Jefferson, FDR and Lincoln, silent in their stone memorials. Men who saw clearly and with tenacity and the power of the word, written and spoken, laid down some of the yardposts of this thing we call democracy. As Jeff Brovet noted after we recounted our afternoon on the Mall, “It makes you want to go off and start your own country”.

Next to the memorials of these figures, stand those more solemn and disquieting. Vietnam, Korea, World War II. Less easy to place amid the triumphs earlier in our perambulation. A reminder of the discord between gilded words and human proclivity. But perhaps also a call to return again and again to the task of nation building.

A new day and to the other end of the Mall to realise the childhood dream of visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Apollo, Voyager, Hubble, Saturn V, Orville and Wilbur, Lindbergh, Yeager, X-15 among the pantheon. And even deeper into the psyche of closet petrol-head, boy-racer, eternal kid- an IMAX of an F-15 jet pilot zooming around with his buddies over Nevada. Brilliant. Left alone by my spouse, I became even more primal, finding my way to the Geology section of the Natural History Museum where for a happy two hours I crept amidst the prizes of asteroids, mantle and tectonic.

And then to the holy of holies. As icy winds whipped across the Capitol, we came as disciples from across the globe to that most sacrosanct. For we waited our cold two hours to enter into the chamber of the US Supreme Court. Negotiating our way through body searches and metal detectors we came to look through the heavy red curtains into the room where two people argued their cases before the nine assembled judges of the Court. It is here that all of us came to see the daily reminder of the task never finished, yet so eagerly embarked upon by Messrs Jefferson et al. No great potentate. Only men and women arguing the cases for freedom and obligation.


Outside, the wind was still icy, but we made our return to Raleigh inspired by this wonderful, perplexing country. Awaiting us, birthday tuna and a happy two year old.

M