Boom rat-a-tat

boom BOOM rat-a-tat tat. The drummer hits his tubs. The tourists gawk at sights. The plastic feet in the Crime Museum, that’s fake. The hulking structure of the FBI building. That’s real. Rat-a-tat-tat. BOOM boom BOOM rat-tat. Clip boards stop people. Care about the environment do you? Answer these questions? Where to eat ‘round here? Where’s metro ‘round here? Rat-tat Rat-tat BOOM BOOM. Kim won his seat last week. Mallahan is on board. Senate confirmed Regis. Street vendors sell hot dogs. Bags of chips strung on rope. Back in DC I’m home.

Watergates

The burbling water fountain in my condo – oddly placed in a canyon of a complex. Then I realized I can hear the waterfall from my window way up high; it muffles the noise of the city – the beeping back up trucks, the shouting of sports fans, the hum of the subway, all these rhythms slip under the glissando of that trickle. I was once deaf, but now I hear. At the National Gallery’s sculpture garden, my favorite is a fountain circle with a half-dozen spouts shooting from the edge to the center. The arcs surge and sigh, seemingly to the beat of the music playing in the park. You can soak your feet in the cool pool and, in the proper season, the local ducks wade, stopping by to invite themselves to your snacks. In the American Art Museum there is a water fountain masquerading as modern chic. Sheets of water pour over a rectangle of black flooring – only barely separated from the rest of the floor by a subtle crack. This you can walk across, the liquid puddles around your shoes as if you were wading a stream. A sleekness ideal for stomping and kicking, investigated by many a toddler in depth.

Newt and me

I first encountered Newt Gingrich when he shut down the government. Republicans had climbed into power. Over a budget dispute, Congress refused to give money to the government to keep operating, so it closed. The city went quiet. Shortly thereafter, I joined the federal service. My colleagues griped. Not only had they been told not to work, they had been prohibited from volunteering their time to the government. It was the paper flow equivalent of a backed up sewer. Later, Newt left for AEI a think tank, and I no longer had to think about him. But, I heard he had been treated for anxiety, and felt sorry for him then. Later, I read he was seen with Condoleeza Rice at an opera at the Kennedy Center. I like opera. I kept my eyes peeled. Surely, I spotted him one evening – Marriage of Figaro. He was with a woman whose blonde-dyed hair looked like a steel helmut. Oh well, we all have our hair moments. That evening I had some challenges with my own dress as well. Neither Newt nor companion looked too comfortable or happy – despite the impending light spot of Mozartian fun. But, it’s true that the wait service was particularly poor that evening. You may have your Tom Cruise, we have our Newt.

On Duckness

Once at a big industry confab, hundreds of people – seekers and the sought after – I met a Congressman. Unusually, he seemed willing to talk to me. I was eager, it would be a professional advance for me to say I had established a common substantive issue relationship with a member of Congress. Toward the end it became apparent he was a former Congressman, now turned consultant. I turned heel and left.

Years ago, I was a staff on the Hill, schooled in foreign policy, but not that well-traveled, a prerequisite for credibility in this field. A friend of my boss said he knew an outfit that was putting together a trip to India, would I be interested, I would be a perfect addition to the delegation. Thrilled, I was helpfully, I kept in touch. Then November came, my boss lost his seat. I called, no return call. I called again, I didn’t exist.

A few weeks ago, some colleagues were briefing one of our senior officials whose term ahs expired and is biding time while someone can be appointed to fill her place. We had always enjoyed working with her and my colleagues’ natural reaction in this instance was to be helpful as possible But bosses more senior than us had other instructions. We could not help her at all. She could prepare with her own personal staff only. The doors slam shut and the ducks waddle off into the sunset.

Delacroix's Divan

In the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Musee Eugene Delacroix preserves his last apartment where he lived while he worked on a commission for the nearby St. Sulpice church. The apartment rooms themselves are small and unremarkable. I walked right by the entrance three times; only a small brass plaque distinguishes it from the neighboring florist and fine textiles trader across the street. Delacroix was a painter and it is his studio which is worth seeing. Two perhaps three stories high, it is situated in a back garden. A large window stretching from table height to the ceiling gives a view of a green garden and the wall of a facing building covered in leafy vines and plants. Sitting in the studio, there is not only light, but the illusion of sitting in a verdant cover, absolutely quiet, none of the sound, smell or sight of the business of the city life steps away. Here Delacroix could pursue his work, which I think of as the action-thriller movie of his time – battles, deaths, desire, and madness. A bit melodramatic for me, but capturing the turning point in action and sentiment.

On loving your country

An Australian colleague reacted with surprise that our senior American delegation had agreed to a bilateral meeting with Brunei. Brunei is a nation of 300,000 people in Southeast Asia, with tropical rainforests honey sweet with truly fresh air. A Russian friend recently told me she was shocked when many of her American friends had asserted that the US-Russia relationship was no longer central to American foreign policy, implying that Russia’s significance had declined since the times of the Cold War. She felt quite the contrary. A Chinese friend of mine whose express purpose in studying in the US was to learn about the openness of the media, asked me why the US media could not be asked to self-censor when reporting on Tibet in the interest of keeping good US-China relations. She was offended particularly by the many mistakes of American reporting on Tibet and consequently was disinclined to believe other reporting as well. Another Chinese friend of mine, a Hong Konger who had heard similar questions from his friends, was ready to throw up his hands at China’s lack of sophistication in dealing with media. A Japanese diplomat casually over lunch mentioned to me that among his friends they agreed it was impossible to get good service in the U.S. He sounded like an American friend of mine complaining about service in France. Did I mistakenly leave the Australian with the impression it was as important as Brunei? What can I say to reassure my Russian friend? With my mainland Chinese friends, how do I avoid getting categorized with the British in the Opium Wars? And, to France, I apologize directly.

I've got a deal for you

Nice suit, said my friend Ewan. Where did you get it? It was red silk. The jacket with Chinese frog buttons, the material artfully crumpled, wrinkled on purpose. In Virginia, I said. Oh, then you paid too much for it. I could show you where to get it half price. Ewan was not wearing a red silk suit. In fact, his outfit was so non-descript I have no recollection of it whatsoever. What does he know about the niceties of women’s fashion? Does he know, for example, that this season, straps with buckles across the foot are very important for boots. That sunny yellow is in, and fluorescent turquoise is so out it must be expunged from the wardrobe. And, he hasn’t shut up about it yet. In China, I know the markets where to go, blah, blah, blah. Ewan is not Chinese, mind you. Nevertheless, he later offers the tip that the best way to get to Budapest is to fly into Vienna and take a river cruise down the Danube. For that tidbit, all is forgiven.

The man in the red shoes

A friend of mine, the gentlemanly half of an old married couple, recently surprised me by saying he feared the rising wave of Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants because if Roman Catholics dominated the U.S., the Pope would take over. We are Episcopalian, I should make clear, so the liturgical differences are relatively small, it is the power structure which governs us that distinguishes from our fellow Ro-Cath’s. My friend’s view, among my circle, is an unusual sentiment to express, especially out loud. With a roll of her eyes, it is also apparent that the lady half of this couple, disagrees with him entirely. She pipes up as a third friend of mine, who is of the Catholic faith and cheerfully reminds us that the Pope is not God but has his frailties like other men, with a “you tell him!” nod. In large numbers this ant-Papist sentiment would be alarming and no doubt in some circles it is. But as I encountered it, it seemed slightly tragic. To be fearful of a Pope in Red Shoes seems an unnecessary burden and anxiety to be carrying. What other visions, altered and redirected might also lighten our being?

Post-boomerism

Thursday evening at the theater and the gray hairs have it. The usher, a nice young strapping man with dark curly hair, his main duty is to lend a chivalrous arm to the supra-eighty ladies stepping out for the evening. I see him trodding the same path up and down the main aisle thrice in the quarter hour before curtain. Indeed, the starring role tonight is played by a senior. These are his groupies. The personal finance television shows are obsessed with retirement. I still have thirty years to think about, any advice in the meantime? Very little, as it turns out. My apartment, recently constructed, has been designed with doors accommodating arthritic hands, a bathroom wide enough for a zimmer walker to circle around in, and a thermostat within reach from a sitting wheel chair position. The front door is accessorized with a big blue button that automatically opens it; the modern-day butler certain. This is useful to me when I wheel in a cart of groceries. And the sidewalk ramps keep my eggs from cracking. I am old before my time.

Plaid spotted

Black with large white polka-dots is my umbrella. On the train, I spot another woman with like umbrella, black with small polka-dots. Just opposite, a girl with a large animal print bag, cream with black spots, and a belt, white with tawny blots. On the bus, just passing Barney’s on M Street, the big plate glass window declares, “We are Mad for Plaid.” Check back later to see if we are sad or glad.

Marching saints

In endless rounds, with air-trombones, parading away, my sister and I learned to sing, "When the saints go marching in." Only later did I learn to associate the song with New Orleans jazz. The first class I ever taught - English as a second language to high school age refugees from Vietnam – I used a Louis Armstrong recording to illustrate the sound and swing of American jazz. Here in Washington, D.C., the home of Duke Ellington, I heard it again recently – played at a local festival to honor New Orleans. The Marshall Keyes band played it slowly, elegiac, a remembrance of all the saints who have gone marching in, and our longing to be – someday – one of their number.

When I was about 25

When I was about 25, I went to my first international government meeting, one where Seniority Counts. All I aimed to do was listen, make a few friends, and break bread with as many delegations as possible, I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting and as the meeting closed I looked looking forward to being able to report that the affairs were collegial, our relationship with other countries good. Then, we reached the final session of the plenary meeting, convening all delegates for a last goodbye. As we got started, a mid-level official, at least twenty years older than me, quietly approached. There was to be a seminar held in his country, he had been organizing all the necessary approvals and wanted it announced at the final session. My agency had supported the seminar but had little to do with its preparation, yet he wanted to me to make the report. I demurred, should not he, the leading official of the host country undertaking all the work, break the good news and invite everyone to a rollicking good time? No, he pointed out. If the U.S. makes the report, he said, then everyone will listen. I did it. His seminar was a success. But, had my week been?

Old silk

The economy is falling apart and although I am no poorer today than I was three weeks ago, I have thought about cutting back in spending. I had a conference to attend today, one where casual dress was more than enough formal. I threw on jeans and an old pink silk blouse with flowers and a tie neck, at least a decade old. It’s traveled the world with me, this blouse. It washes well in hotel sinks and emerges from luggage relatively wrinkle free. Despite being silk, it’s been hard wearing, nary a hole, a rip, not faded as afar as I can tell. But, I stopped at a store on the way home. Silk shirts, hand washable, in beautiful prints on sale and discounted further today. As I tried on a new one – orange and brown, paisley prints are in this season (or the last, as the case may be), I realized how old the old standby is. It’s from another era and marks me as such. The recent compliments I had on it, I realize, bust be from those who also fondly remember that era; and a sadness, sweet and light, like a blanket of snow, beautiful in its poignancy but harbinger of an unavoidable fresh season envelopes me in the dressing room.

Daily graces

“How y’all doing this morning?” said the gentleman as he walked into the elevator. “Fine, thank you” the chorus and me responded, on cue, in unison. Smiles, nods all around. As the doors re-open, I step out and the gents follow. Make no mistake, this requires a certain consciousness. In Asia, where I travel often, the men get out first and I have to hold back. In the Southernness that DC still has, I pay attention and step out quickly. Otherwise, everyone else’s exist is delayed while one dawdles. Such courtesies are luxuries. I remember as a student in Boston, visiting DC and enjoying these graces I had grown up as a child of the South. As I returned to Yankeeland, doors slammed in front of me, left behind in the stampeded out the elevator doors. Graces matter sometimes.

An ancient pain

An ancient pain resurfaced when I attended Sunday service at Washington National Cathedral. It is not my parish church, I am an infrequent visitor, and I had forgotten that they celebrate the liturgy with a men and boys choir in the old tradition. As a small child, no more than 7 or 8 years old, I was musically gifted but with only an average voice. Good enough to be in a choir, not good enough to be a soloist. The best children’s choir in town, however, was a boys’ choir. They gave the best concerts, had the coolest gowns, sang with orchestras, and had all the pomp that flows from long tradition. There was a mixed children’s choir to which I belonged, but it did not have all the trappings of the other. It was my first encounter as a young child that I had been born in to a boys’ world and there were to be many injustices to come. I cried at the time; and at Washington National Cathedral, those tears returned. The preacher Peter Gomes repeated a message I had heard from him times before. The wealthy should feed the poor and clothe the naked. The knowledgeable, he said, do not know all and cannot imagine the plight of others. And so, although the dinner speaker may be a little dull, and the food may be indifferent, I will go to my board dinner next week because I am nearly the only woman fellow. Ironic, indeed, to be called a fellow. A young student or colleague just getting started, may need to see that I am there, at the head table, with the directors, chatting with the chairman.

On the 32

Route 32 comes to my neighborhood from Capitol Hill, not far from the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. It stops right in front of the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence is on display. In morning rush, it’s mostly full of working stiffs, the D.C. version of the office lades and office men. Salary men and salary women are on the metro. But, there is the lady in the black knit suit – the the St. John-kind, not the sweatsuit kind. With big gold jewelry and a rollie briefcase packed with something. Without seeing inside, it might be full of papers, but if it were full of peanut butter crackers, we would be none the wiser. We treat her like it is full of papers. There are mothers with small children, little girls with tight braids and beads, still half asleep, curled on the seat. There are high school students who have shed their sheltering parents, knowing, loudly, calling out teach other at the bus stop. "Getting pregnant is serious, I always use a condom. I like that bag of hers I wonder where she got it." Further down on the 32. Later in the morning, it becomes transport for the halt and the lame. The buses kneel like elephants, giving the elderly and others an easier climb up. Seats fold up and wheelchairs click into place. Walkers and their wielders have enough space to rotate around. Drivers wait until everyone is settled, seated, comfortable; they answer questions, give people the benefit of the doubt, the route’s got to be run anyway and it’s the public’s bus; Yodas of the city street, cab drivers seem like scalpers by comparison. We pass the President at the White House, glide by the World Bank which really isn’t a bank, and then slip into shopping Nirvana, the boutiques and small alleyways of Georgetown, and on to the prestige department stores of Chevy Chase. From the 32 you can take it all in – judiciary, legislature, to executive; business card to credit card; global to micro-local.

Before the time changes

Just when the days are shortening, before the time has changed, suddenly as the day darkens, it’s possible to peek into lit interiors. People in denial of the coming cold and dark have not yet drawn the shades. Clerks in offices move papers around. People arriving home unpack their briefcases. At the Hotel Monaco, the luxury of even the basement rooms is revealed, vacant as the economy sputters. The Capitol glows. Through the ring of glass windows that encircle the dome, you can see straight through to the grey-suit sky behind. The sun sets behind the Washington monument, as colorful as the fireworks from summertime. Congress is in session. November elections loom. And then, the holidays arrive

Greens

Americans around the world are known as people who often eat too much. As one Greek friend of mine noted – he was referring to a portly businessman acquaintance – you see these quite often among Americans, but rarely among the Japanese. I joined volunteers at D.C.’s Central Kitchen where a new effort to bring nutritionally sounder meals to the city’s homeless and hungry is under way. Volunteers go out to cooperating farms after fields have been picked for market and glean the remainder for usable produce. The result the day I was at the kitchen was dozens of bags of collard greens, the mainstay of American soul food, fresh and smelling of earth, crisp as whips. We set about de-stemming and chiffonading the large leaves. I got my vitamins for the day just slicing and dicing. They put me in mind of a recent meal I had up in U Street, a hole-in-the-wall counter in Duke Ellington’s old neighborhood - mac and cheese, greens, and corn bread. At the bottom of my cup of greens was left the juicy pot licker, slightly acidic, salty from the bacon, sopped up with the sweet corn bread, my childhood lunches in the South came flooding back to me.

Mughal's greatest hits

An afternoon on the Mall, and at the Freer Gallery, Mughal miniatures are the occasion for a tour offered by a visiting professor. At this talk, nearly a hundred people squeeze themselves into the jewel-like galleries to peer at small paintings on paper, scenes surrounded by fabulously opulent borders. In the crowd, a couple of scruffy students – sandals, long hair, nearly unshaven – ask about the origins of Sufism, the connection between art and history. A woman in white hijab anxious to distinguish the tension between Sufism and orthodox Islam in India – relatively mildly spicy – and in the Middle East – five alarm spicy. Another woman in crowd reads for the group the poetry of Mir Ali in Farsi, the unexpected cadence filling the cool dark rooms of the museum. And outside hot dogs and soft drinks sold off a wheeled cart and a carousel whisks small children to the tunes of John Philip Souza.

Yielding to the delegates

You, gentle reader, would have no idea of this, but every government has phalanxes of officials whose responsibility it is to figure out when and who gets to dig up what on city streets every day. No matter what the cause, the digging is always a mess, it disrupts traffic, is a hazard to pedestrians and, therefore, we governments are pretty much on a constant quest to find better ways of getting the job done. Surely, it was with this admirable goal in mind when Singapore asks this International Organization (henceforth, “IO”) to undertake a comparative study. Unfortunately, Singapore is only an Observer in this IO; the secretariat nods politely and moves on. What ho! France, who is a full Member, is also enthusiastic, raises his flag at the meeting, and supports the proposal. Again, a polite nod. Finally, an American businessman also expresses interest, but he is not even an Observer – just a ¼ nod will do for him. As the meeting draws to a close, memories of proposals I have quashed, budgets which I have shrunk, rebukes I have delivered flash before me. I raise the flag, note the comments of my colleagues and throw the project into a positive light. The Secretariat perks up, the item is on the work plan; and, a year later, the IO produces the report. A day’s work done.

Blingophobia

There will be a discreet license tag, anonymously DC city, a federal government car number, or a diplomatic tag, if appropriate. Rarely is there an entourage, no police escort. Those are for the outsiders who are only visiting or, occasionally, a simple bunch of tourists who want a little thrill. The real heavyweights are in the black four-doors. Yesterday, I saw a white stretch SUV ‘round the corner in Georgetown. Today, I spotted a stretch black limo slipping down Pennsylvania Avenue. Those are New Yorkers or Angelinos here for a holiday weekend, not the local honchos of the capitol.