Saturday 21 April 2012

Tears and tacos in the capital.

Another day, another town. Last nite we arrived in Washington DC: my first time here. I had something work-related to finish last nite, so when Mum, Dad and I set off for the 'Mall' in the centre of town this morning I was feeling a little underslept (two and a half hours sleep was okay back when I was an undergrad... but now...) and underprepared. However, the capital put on a stunning sunny day for us and the sunshine hitting the eyeballs seemed to help because once we emerged from the 'Smithsonian' metro station I was feeling spritely and excited.

There's so much to say about the day - it was great - but I will spare the details and focus on two moments: tears, and tacos.

Because we were on the 'Mall' before 9am and the museums didn't open for at least another hour, we took the opportunity to walk around the major sites up and down the area. First stop was at the far end, Lincoln Memorial, which I am embarassed to say I cannot help but link to Bart Simpson's visit to the statuesque president in an episode I watched many years ago. Sure, I have another associations too... but the Bart Simpson one just can't be exiled! (The fact that we got to Bart Simpson's Abe Lincoln by walking past what is filed in my head as 'the Forrest Gump fountain,' despite being more of a pool than a fountain, and you can see what kind of day I've had! Glorious - and exhausting!)

Well, it turns out that clustered around the Lincoln Memorial are the war memorials: WWII, Korea, Vietnam. Now, I am a cynic when it comes to war, and to US foreign policy, and to American versions of its involvement in various conflicts, and in several other things that should have left me embarassingly blase about these things. Sure, I respect they represent people who have passed away and sure, I understand that individual decisions to participate in war are not able to be understood in isolation or closely fixed to some kind of assumed moral weakness.

And, whether it was because of the lack of sleep or hitherto-lack of coffee, or whether it was because of the memorials themselves being actually or even especially moving, I found myself shedding tears - crying - as I moved around the area.

Actually, I found the close proximity of this trip to Washington to our reconnection with our cousins in North Carolina to be a little startling: the stakes of histories and connection and staying in touch and never coming back feel heightened. I also found myself thinking a lot about Uncle Paul and Grandad and their years of miliary service with the Maori battalion during WWII; no doubt I was thinking about them because of our big talks abot them all earlier this week, but I also found that my sense of 'America' has thickened and become a little more supple while driving through the towns and cities over the past week and a half. The names on these memorials - these statues - could be a young man or woman from Nelsonville, Chicago, Chardon, Grant Park, Charlotte, or Lexington. They could have been - but for an accident of birth brought about by the marriage of one particular man and one particular woman - the names of my own grandparents, parents, home.

That was the tears. The tacos were, well,  another story indeed: the national Museum of the American Indian is amazing and huge! However, we were armed with advice to eat in the cafe there and so sought it out once we'd taken photos outside the White House and discussed the meaning of the flags at the base of the Washington Monument. In we went, with trays and hunger, and out we came, into a lovely spacious dining room, with Buffalo meat Indian tacos. YUM!

So much more to write... but for now, sleep. Po marie.

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