Sitting on a bench at the banks of the Potomac, I looked up and watched plane after plane rise up into the skies above Alexandria. I find this almost therapeutic, the rhythmic rise of man and machine, a symbol of our ordered scheduled world. Behind me was perhaps the oldest settled land in the area, dating back to the Virginia charters. In front of me, the blue brown water flowing past Mount Vernon, out into the Chesapeake and the Atlantic Ocean, like it has for so much longer than man can remember.
Observing airplanes takes on a different tone these days. I have well entrenched memories from places like Doha and Abu Dhabi, watching them take off from the desert out over the Persian Gulf, for months upon months upon months, wishing I was on them, going somewhere, anywhere. But sitting on my bench this afternoon, there was no such feeling. I was at peace, content, full of deep breaths and restful eyes, happy to be where I was. The paradox between eras - though a long and winding road - is a reaffirmation, since reaffirmed again. That the changes I felt pressed to make, were important. That the things I knew deeply, were true. They were true, and I feel gratitude for their veracity and the experience all that brings, challenging an odd fortune cookie once acquired in a different life urging me to settle, because it won't get any better than this. I pulled that worn piece of paper out of my Moleskine and threw it right into the water, watching it bounce with the waves and float away. The date was Wednesday, August 1, discarding last remaining bygone thoughts and dreams into the throes of summer.
If summer in Washington was a sound, it would be the cicadas high up in the trees calling out in the hot afternoons. They follow me across the squares and circles of the city, from the shores in Alexandria right up to my bedroom window, lulling me into a nap, perhaps, and reminding me where I am.
