Photo by María Helena Carey
If you’ve been a regular reader of my little column, you may have picked up that I grew up out West.
Also, if you know me in person, you may know that I tend to mix up “out West” and “back East”. To me, it only made sense the other way around, after all. Why on earth would I be wanting to get back East, if my hometown was back West, where I belonged?
But as we go deeper into this soft, whirlwindy part of the year, I am more attuned to why East and specifically why The Hill is feeling more and more like home: it’s the change of the seasons, and the dramatic background upon which they unfurl.
If you have always known seasons, you may or may not cherish them. Me, I have only known one kind of weather most of my life, divided into mild and milder sections of “nice”.
While some may grumble about the weather getting colder and about the winter freeze to come, I find the change of seasons to be one of the best things about living here. Simply feeling the first chill that moves you to get your sweater out and shrugging into it and possibly crossing Pennsylvania Avenue at some point and getting a glimpse of the Capitol, is thrilling to me.
When you come from a place where the weather could be considered ” boring” –like the California clime I have lived in, it is especially awe-inspiring to see the city and the monuments in their bright cool whiteness next to the changing leaves and sky. From the empty January skies that turn the DC tide every four years to the searing fried-egg sidewalks of a quiet August, from the perfect blue of an early September sky over fall’s hustle and bustle to the pink-tinged skies of a cherry-blossom spring, every season brings something new and unique to the landscape.
Everywhere you go there are milestones and landmarks– not just the hallmarks of a busy, large city, but also the impressive, sweeping vistas of the monuments and the smaller, more tucked-away details such as fountains and plaques memorializing places of birth and death. It is probably trite and clichéd, but nothing can quite rival seeing our well-known landmarks covered in snow or spiking the air with pink clouds swirling around them. The sight of this living tableau is something that ostensibly belongs to every US citizen, yet we get to see it daily if we choose. And even closer in Capitol Hill, with its storybook Victorians and its tidy little front gardens, is the small town within this power-hungry city that we call home. Here, too, the changing seasons bring new colors, decorations, and surprises that make each different time of year even more special.
We lucky DC residents get to see this city alive and vibrant and changing every day. In some ways it’s like watching a child grow into a young person– a beloved face that you don’t think could be different one day looks up at you and is so changed, yet still the same.
Happy Autumn!