Washington: of accidental loveliness

(All photographs by me)

Someone described Washington DC as a city  of accidental loveliness. A place you go to in search of something substantive, but end up finding loveliness on the way. A bit like life.  

So - on our way to get the famous Georgetown Cupcakes, my lovely guides for the day and I found a cute canal  to walk beside. Then -  I went to see a music show in the Kennedy Center and found a place to sit beside the shimmering Potomac. I looked around to take a boat ride on the river and found children frolicking in a park shower beside scores of ducks floating beside kayakers. And the pleasures, each time, multiplied. 

One of the days I was in the National Building Museum, reading about what is a home, and seeing a project done by teenagers who examined the whole question of what makes a dwelling a place to stay in, and what would make them move on to a new locality to start anew- or not. And I was wondering the same about cities we choose to spend a largish part, or the entirety of our lives. And what should a city offer to ensure people don't leave. 

As I sat and heard Christian Perez, an Argentine guitarist, strum his way alongside Yana Hristova, as she played her flute into her rich and variegated version of El Condor Pasa, I thought - here's the reason to stay. The Kennedy Center has free music performances everyday at 6 pm. And the peerless Georgetown and it's pier is just a stone's throw away. 

I like cities which preserve their museums so well, and with such care. It's impossible not to be drawn into their thoughtfulness to preserve their past to guide their future. And it's easy to lose oneself in the grandeur and breadth of the numerous institutions which are on and around the National Mall. The ones I spent time in were Natural History, the Art museums - including the Hirschorn and the Sculpture Garden - Air & Space and American History. And each time, I came out refreshed, enriched and awed. The same was when I spent hours in Newseum and the International Spy Museum ( designed to be comprehensive and surprisingly so,  apart from being delightfully fluffy!).  

And how could I not catch up with some theatre too? Though some of the DC  jokes in the delightfully irreverent play Shear Madness eluded me, obviously it had everyone else rolling in the aisles. And laughter is one way to judge a city. But is there enough which I could see? Kids pealing in laughter, yes; blacks partying in pubs, yes. But generally it's a very quiet city. Nowhere the racousness of New York, or the happy generosity of San Francisco. There almost seems to be a carefulness to be open. Is it because of the politics which defines the city and the need to be politically correct or is it the uppity attitude of a capital city denizenry?

I think the best part of the city came into one's ken, either just beyond its best sights or as perchance discoveries. Inside Georgetown beside it's canal and riverside park; in Gravelly Park beside Ronald Reagan Airport;  in Kramerbooks on Dupont Circle; in the cool underground shop of Hirschorn Museum; in the lounge at the back of Baked & Wired; in the quiet funkiness of Busboys & Poets. Strange this. We travel miles to find the unusual and find the soul of a city in its ordinary. 

I guess there is a city for every age. It's only right that millennials don't like Washington DC too much. It's meant for people who are tired of ephemeral excitement and are in search of something more sustaining. Leave the politics aside, Washington DC is quite right for the quiet. 

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Hear some lovely city poems!

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