Reflection In the Stars (458 hits)
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Submitted by Axolotl (View user info) at 2009-04-28 16:34:42 EDT
The beginning of summer in Washington DC was blazingly hot, and the lack of air conditioning was driving me outside all week. I had walked two miles all the way up Nebraska Avenue and back, but it felt like I had been walking over the entire Northwest. Even so, I kept on walking when she told me where she was, and made my way down New Mexico and tried to find the park that she kept referring to. It was dark, and twilight long past, and the bleak darkness of the park, hidden from streetlights, was illuminated only by the moon and stars above. I saw Erica and Lauren by the chain-link fence, and began walking up a hill through the humid night to meet them.
As I sloughed up the dewy hill, I heard them call out to me, their voices sharp and clear, unlike the dull police sirens that ubiquitously blared in the background. They were both stoned, and to my sober ears, their sentences were blurred and rambling. I reached the top of the hill, and walked up to the high fence, beyond which lay this secret park, hidden from view of the street, and buried underneath the shadow of an elementary school.
Erica told me that there was an entrance far on the other side. I put my face up to the chain-link, kissed her through the wire, and began to walk around the fence to reach the park.
I had been walking all day, starting around six o'clock, when I had begun walking down Nebraska Avenue towards Connecticut, passing by Fort Reno Park. Realizing that I had half an hour to spare before I had to be at a live reading at Politics and Prose, I began to explore the park, looking at the maps and plaques that scattered the sunlit field. During the Civil War, the Army of Northern Virginia had attempted to attack Washington DC, but were turned back at critical battles in Tenleytown and Rock Creek. Abraham Lincoln himself had commanded the forces at these battles - the only time a US President has been under direct fire.
As I walked around the hilltop of Fort Reno, I thought of how the Union soldiers must have looked down upon the fields of Friendship Heights, muskets armed, preparing to defend the capital, and how maybe a nineteen-year-old man fell by a grassy plot, in the same square foot where I, another nineteen-year-old man walked by a hundred and forty years later, listening to Girl Talk. I don't think the Union soldier could even have conceived of what Girl Talk was, just as in another hundred years the park along Nebraska will again be changed beyond recognition.
For a moment, as I left the park, I felt a sense of gratefulness for the peace in which most Americans live. In this very field not long ago, brutal violence tore the country apart; now, it's a park, and a place where you can see middle-aged women walking dogs, and nearby kids from Woodrow Wilson High School furtively smoking bowls and drinking after hours. My day had taken a very cosmic turn.
I finally made my way around the chain-link and entered the park, a tiny little enclave cloaked in the shadow of the hill and the elementary school. Lauren was sitting suggestively at the opening of a gigantic slide - must have been thirty feet - that winded from the bottom of the hill to the top. I was impressed by it, and I could only imagine the kind of badass grammar-schooler who would dare to go down it.
"It's a fucking scary slide," Lauren said. I dropped off my backpack, ascended the hill, and peered into the slide. It really was a scary fucking slide, even sober. Erica and Lauren cheered for me to go down - not loud enough to attract the attention of DC cops, who could arrest us for trespass - but I flung myself down the dark abyss of the slide, stopping myself halfway down the winding tube. There was silence at the bottom.
"Stop playing with us, we know you're up there," Erica said.
"Did he disappear into another dimension?" permastoned Lauren said. I paused a few minutes to freak them out, then released my grip and flew down the slide.
We wandered around the park a little longer. This park was amazing, I can't believe that I didn't have parks as cool as this as a kid. If I were ten years younger I could have had a blast hear, but the three of us were old now, and too big to even make our way up on anything other than the swings and slide. We laid down on a wooden platform at the base of the jungle gym and looked up at the stars.
The stars were beautiful and clear, so much more so than where my house is back in New Jersey. When I visited the South for the first time three weeks ago, I noticed it even more. There in North Carolina, the skies were so blue, and the stars so clear. I thought that line in "Sweet Home Alabama" was just metaphorical, but really the skies were so much clearer. My friend Cash laughed at me when I said that. I was visiting his home outside Raleigh for a weekend, and he was showing a Yankee all the wonders of the South, but he hadn't expected to hear that.
"One of the joys of being a parent is living vicariously through your kids," I said. "Everyone loves jungle gyms and parks and kids' shows and movies, but it's not socially acceptable as adults to go there."
"If I saw a 30 year old guy at a park like this playing with a bunch of kids on the jungle gym, I'd probably call the cops," Lauren said.
I sat there with them, looking up at the stars for a long time. In the distance over the hilltop the dorms of American University loomed huge over the residential neighborhood, its glowing lights making a glimmer in Erica's eyes. I can't believe how much things have changed over this year, how different of a person I am, how different I look at the world. To hell with classes, living independently for a year with all the amazing people college has to offer -queer anarchists, radical postmodernists, acid-dropping tweakers, neoconservative gay activists, frat bros living out empty lives, and every kind of person you could imagine - I couldn't even begin to explain to my past self a year ago what this following year would be like.
I've lost a lot of things, but gained some others. I know what I want in life, and I know the kind of person that I want to be, or at least that I think I want to be. I've seen some fucking great concerts (Ratatat, Girl Talk, and ESPECIALLY Streetlight Manifesto), met some great people, and explored the vast and wonderful city of Washington DC, which is soulless and dead downtown but unique and vibrant on the outskirts. I've been on the mall Inauguration Day, been published, started a fraternity, and more important that than, learned about myself and the world around me more than I could ever have conceived or imagined.
There's nothing I could be more grateful for than this year in DC, and it feels a little bittersweet that it's coming to an end. This has been one of the greatest years in my life, and I couldn't be more content.
User Reviews
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-05-01 00:48:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
SO, HAD SEX YET???
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2009-04-29 10:47:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-04-29 09:53:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I've never listened to them, but my bro has pretty decent (albeit strange) taste in music and he ADORES Ratatat. I'll have to give 'em a listen.
This was exceptionally written; have points for that. Also, glad you're enjoying DC. :)
Submitted by sage104 (user info) at 2009-04-29 09:47:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Haven't even read past the first paragraph but you get points from me for this being based in DC.
And speaking of DC, GO CAPS MOTHERFUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem. I'll finish reading this now.
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-04-29 07:16:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What RS said...
Good to see you around mang.
Submitted by RoadSong (user info) at 2009-04-29 00:03:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"I can't believe how much things have changed over this year, how different of a person I am, how different I look at the world. To hell with classes, living independently for a year with all the amazing people college has to offer -queer anarchists, radical postmodernists, acid-dropping tweakers, neoconservative gay activists, frat bros living out empty lives, and every kind of person you could imagine - I couldn't even begin to explain to my past self a year ago what this following year would be like."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sweet
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-04-28 20:31:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-04-28 18:27:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is everything that Perkman's post is not.
Glad you're enjoying life, kid. Too few people do these days.
Submitted by YourNameHere (user info) at 2009-04-28 16:53:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
As I sloughed up the dewy hill, I heard them call out to me, their voices sharp and clear, unlike the dull police sirens that ubiquitously blared in the background.
LOL
That is the most hilariously awful sentence I've read in some time.
Submitted by PlatinumScarecrow (user info) at 2009-04-28 16:51:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
You're a great writer, but one question arises in my mind....
Who GIVES A FUCK?!?!?!?