Tired. That’s how I felt. Even after my nap.
Mike and I were spending the weekend in D.C. and we already had a busy day. I walked around the Mall in the early morning, we walked to Eastern Market and returned with our kaleidoscope of fruits and vegetables, unpacked them, took Metro to Woodley Park, and walked uphill in the sun to the National Zoo. We strolled around the zoo seeing lions, and tigers, and bears, and more. Afterward, we came back to the apartment for a nap.
We intended to take a nighttime bus tour around the city. We heard the monuments were beautiful draped in white light. But, like so many things, it sounded like a good idea when it was just an idea before it required real energy to make it happen. That’s where we were. Stuck. Conflicted. To go or not to go. That was the question. Not a noble question but a practical one.
In the end, we went. We found seats on the upper deck and off we went….well, after a prolonged wait to fill up the bus. The sky was clear and dark. The breeze blew cool and comfortable, except when the bus stopped for a traffic signal. Then, the air stopped, too, and exhaust fumes filled its place. But, nonetheless, it was delightful. The Capitol, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and an assortment of white stone buildings that make up downtown D.C. The tour was narrated by a chirpy, happy man who was a recording. Who was a recording. Who was a recording that would get ahead of itself and had to be rewound so that the “building on our left” was, in fact, the building on our left. The easy-going lilt in his voice belied the unusually formal words that littered the narration - words like “whilst” and “thus.”It was a lovely evening and I wondered why it had been so hard to drag myself off of the sofa. And I wondered what it was that ultimately made us go. For me, I think it was the sense that this moment may never come again. Yes, the chances are good that we’ll have another evening in D.C., but will the sky be cloudless and the wind warm? Will we be less tired than now? I have this sense that life is passing and we retrieve this particular evening. So – go. Go now. As my friend, Chris, would say, “Go out and make a memory.” There are many times when I thought I was too tired or busy to go out and make a memory. But there has never been a time when I regretted going. It’s always worth it.
And, thus, Mike and I made another memory. We left the ease of the apartment to feel the wind in our hair whilst the monuments of DC glowed past. It was a good night. I think I’ll sleep late tomorrow.
