A Visit to Washington D.C.
Last weekend, I was in Washington D.C. visiting my friend, Denise. Denise and I go way back to twenty-one years ago when Scott and I first arrived in Libreville, Gabon.
Denise and her husband, Sanders, welcomed us into their lives and their home. They welcomed others too, young volunteers from the Peace Corps or other organizations, who would come into the city on breaks from their work in villages. There was always plenty of food and cards and games at their house.
We would eventually have children around the same time. I stood by her hospital bed after she gave birth to her first child. When our adoption process screeched to a halt with an uncooperative official, she prayed me through it.
These days, as I write my book, Denise and Sanders are everywhere, through the pages of our years in Libreville, popping up to visit when we live in Nice. They were with us in Fort Wayne when our cat was run over.
In April, Denise had a massive heart attack. She was in Bulgaria, in the final months of her posting in Sophia. She had to fly to D.C. for rehabilitation in May, leaving her family to finish the school year and pack out the house. Plans for their next posting in Ghana were nixed, and she got news that her heart wasn't recovering as well as they thought. She is doing well now, has a defibrillator implanted, just in case.
In September, she came month of training in D.C., while her family stayed at the Colorado house they rent out when they are oversees. Denise found a position open in Belgium. They will get there in the next few days.
While Denise was in meetings, I popped into the National Coalition on School Diversity at Howard University. Author Susan Eaton, who has been a friend to The Reclamation Project, visited a few years ago and wrote this. I was able to catch the her keynote interview Nikole Hannah-Jones, journalist recently featured on NPR's This American Life with her story, The Problem We All Live With.
I took the metro in DC and loved it. It brings back memories of France and city living without a car. In a city metro, people with different skin colors and economic realities, with different languages and and perspectives, are in one another's space. I think that's a key difference between communities in mid-sized cities like Fort Wayne, and cities with public transport that's truly used by everyone. There are few spaces in Fort Wayne where this happens.
Denise and I went to the National Gallery of Art on Saturday. I've been thinking ever since about a connection between essays and what I saw there, but that's another post.
We also did a little shopping. Denise will start work without business clothes, so we found suits and dresses, and I snagged this for Anna...
And, my friend Jen, who spent a year with us in Nice, joined us Sunday afternoon. We had a Vietnamese lunch, talked and talked, had tea and chocolate.
Denise and her husband, Sanders, welcomed us into their lives and their home. They welcomed others too, young volunteers from the Peace Corps or other organizations, who would come into the city on breaks from their work in villages. There was always plenty of food and cards and games at their house.
We would eventually have children around the same time. I stood by her hospital bed after she gave birth to her first child. When our adoption process screeched to a halt with an uncooperative official, she prayed me through it.
These days, as I write my book, Denise and Sanders are everywhere, through the pages of our years in Libreville, popping up to visit when we live in Nice. They were with us in Fort Wayne when our cat was run over.
In September, she came month of training in D.C., while her family stayed at the Colorado house they rent out when they are oversees. Denise found a position open in Belgium. They will get there in the next few days.
While Denise was in meetings, I popped into the National Coalition on School Diversity at Howard University. Author Susan Eaton, who has been a friend to The Reclamation Project, visited a few years ago and wrote this. I was able to catch the her keynote interview Nikole Hannah-Jones, journalist recently featured on NPR's This American Life with her story, The Problem We All Live With.
I didn't have time to walk around the grounds and explore, but did pause in front of this mural in the law building, where the conference took place.
I took the metro in DC and loved it. It brings back memories of France and city living without a car. In a city metro, people with different skin colors and economic realities, with different languages and and perspectives, are in one another's space. I think that's a key difference between communities in mid-sized cities like Fort Wayne, and cities with public transport that's truly used by everyone. There are few spaces in Fort Wayne where this happens.
But I will say that this picture fascinated me. In the 1850s, Haussmann set about redesigning Paris. The streets were narrow, and he widened them, giving space for scenes like this. It's kind of like the metro, but more pleasant, a place for where all kinds of people gather.
And, my friend Jen, who spent a year with us in Nice, joined us Sunday afternoon. We had a Vietnamese lunch, talked and talked, had tea and chocolate.
I've always said that I don't like travel, which is of course ironic, since I'm moved and been a part of so many places. We have collected our fair share of stories about transatlantic travel with babies and toddlers, with ice storms and lost luggage and shut down airports. But now that we're settled in Fort Wayne, and any travel I've done is low-key, I have to say that I like it. I like the way a new place gives space for ideas and perspective. And of course, I am so thankful that every once in a while I have the chance to reconnect with precious friends face-to-face.