19th and the Circle

When I was a senior at Tulane, they offered what they called "externships," one-week-long mini-internships with Tulane alumni around the country, during the winter break.

Mine was supposed to be in Washington, DC with Where Magazine. Ken and I had just started dating and he said I could fly out to Maryland and stay with him, and he'd drive me into the city and then we'd drive back to school together for the spring semester. (Little did I know that he actually lived in Southern Maryland, a 90-minute drive from DC each way, at best. Must've been love.)

So I bought my ticket and made my plans and I get to DC, only to find out that Where is changing its computer systems or something (the particulars are lost to memory after nearly 20 years), and there was going to be no externship.

But the editor was very nice about it and agreed to meet me for lunch and to introduce me to other journalists she knew at the Post and Washingtonian magazine. (Somewhere in the depths of my basement are their business cards, but I remember their names still: John Kelly and Ken DeCell. I think John Kelly lives near me. I see a guy at my Metro stop sometimes who looks just like his mug photo. Small world, I suppose.)

I had been to DC only once before, in 1988, with my church youth group*, but we mostly saw the monuments, so this was my first real experience with the city part of the city. Having just lived in the U.K. and traveled parts of Europe, I was impressed by the intimate, urban feel of the downtown. It had the cosmopolitan bustle of New York, but on a manageable, human scale.

I wanted to work there.

But I didn't really know how to leverage those contacts I'd made, and after I graduated I was in debt and couldn't afford to move to another city anyway, and Ken was now going to graduate school in Miami, so thoughts of DC receded.

And now I've lived and (mostly) worked here for over 10 years.

The overly familiar becomes forgotten. I need to remind myself of what it once felt like to walk the streets of this city as a 21-year-old, ready to begin. I could be anywhere, in hundreds of places less lovely and lively, but here I am, looking out my office window at 19th Street and Dupont Circle, watching the wind ruffle the trees in the garden of the Heurich House down below.

One more thing to be grateful for, nearly twice my lifetime later.

* Oh man, *that's* a whole 'nother story I'll have to tell some day.