Floret urbis undique
It was a splendid day, the first full-hearted spring of the season. For a few weeks now I have seen a crocus here or a daffodil there, splashes of color as grateful to the eyes as a breath of warm air from an opened door on a shivering winter day. But now the trees begin to show white and scatter their petals like coins, now spears of green appear in front yard and window-box, now the Metro flashes travel advice for the cherry blossom festival, and I pumped up my tires, oiled my sadly rusted chain, and took the road for the Mount Vernon Trail and Alexandria.
More than half the journey there was spent looping around the maze of roads just beyond the mall, trying to avoid dropping myself onto 395 or into the crowds of pedestrians out admiring the flowers. The area could stand to be better signed for bikers, but it is no great matter; a few more such expeditions and I shall have no further difficulty. The sun was high and brilliant. The heaps of cloud around the basin echoed the clouds of blossom below, and occasionally shook down bright heavy drops. Once I was over the bridge and well on my way, I began to look about me: whole families out for walks, bulky men running with large gadgets strapped to their large arms, a couple of middle-aged women lying on a blanket out by the airport looking up at the planes, a couple standing square in the middle of the trail, wrapped around each other. Were they overcome by passion while out jogging together? Did they set out, one from Alexandria and one from Arlington, and against all odds run into each other halfway? I’d got more interesting things to run my mind on anyway; Ira Glass was chirping away meditatively into my headphones about people who find themselves on the wrong side of history.
I arrived in Alexandria, but the pottery studio was closed, as I had half-known that it would be. Nothing daunted, I pushed myself up in an easy gear to the Trader Joe’s, where I bought myself a container of yogurt. Soon it will be warm enough for smoothies, and soon, too, it will be warm enough to buy myself a water filter. The water from my kitchen faucet has a faint, foul, earthy taste to it, and while in winter I rarely drink it outside the form of a tea or tisane, warmer weather calls for cooler drinks. I was thirsty, and so I bought a jar of mango-passion fruit juice, with the truly questionable name of “Heart of Darkness”. What’s next? “The Waste Land” cocktail crackers? “Crime and Punishment” tapenade?
On the way back, I went over by the Key bridge and found myself at the Lincoln Memorial at sunset. I twitched my headphones out of my ears and went exploring. Groups of high-schoolers, astonishingly young, were running up and down the steps, lounging in twos and threes within, curled up with note books staring up at the great speeches on the walls. There are some wall paintings high up on the wall, but I couldn’t make them out. Do they need restoring? A party in blue - a sports team, I think - jogged up the steps of the memorial, absorbing by some kind of osmosis the gravity of civil strife. An Indian couple walked ou, talking together with great animation.
I took my way around the back of the memorial and looked out over the bridge to the west. The sinking sun turned the shiny leaves red where it touched them; the trees shone as if with Christmas lights. The scallops in the pillars are just large enough to repose one’s shoulders in. Eastwards the pale federal buildings blushed, and the Washington monument blinked its baleful little eyes into the sun.
“Nard! Hey NARD!” shouted a high schooler to a friend.
“En-oh! H - E - double hockey stick NO!” pronounced another one.
When I left, the clouds, and the trees that mirrored them, were both a pale lavender-grey. Up into the city now: noises, lights, the smells of food. A car came swerving into the bikes-and-busses only lane, nearly catching me by the left side. I cursed him as one in Oedipus’ mold, and then passed him at the next red light, striking out for home, for fried eggs and the rest of the mango juice.
The only cloud upon the pleasure of the day is that it is, perhaps by necessity, a solitary one - for though I should have loved to know that the delights of exertion, light, color, contemplation, were echoed in another soul, I assuredly do not want the bother of having to talk to someone, and indeed that would have spoiled the sort of the day’s pleasure, in which the movement of clouds and crowds alike form a sort of urban weather through which the wanderer sails like a small craft.
oregon payday loans…
Very usefull. Thanks! oregon+payday+loans…
July 14th, 2009 at 8:30 amHi, Very nice, unique, and informative post. Thanks for sharing. Keep up the good work.
February 18th, 2010 at 3:07 pm