The Red Line to China Town

I'm glad our lives intersect.

Dana and I left Leesburg just after 5 pm on Friday night. We stopped at the bank and I covered my eyes in silver powder in the Jeep while Dana waited in line for the ATM. Soon we both had real cash in our hands which usually anticipates calamity or adventure--like one of R. L. Stevenson's boy heroes. You start out on your trip with something valuable--something to get you through the journey.

Then we made our way into the Capital city. Many of the cars around us had their windows down and their music on. The beads of sweat were gathering on the smalls of our backs. We would drive for a few minutes and then pull up quickly and stop. We ended up passing the same cars and people over and over again in traffic. The repetition tightened the memory like a a double-stitch of thread. We took Constitution Avenue through the city. We saw families, strollers, lovers, nuns, policemen and foreign tourists on the document-named road. They were like flies on the parchment of the great.

Each piece of our journey was marked by some archetype. Leaving home with money, driving on a Great Highway, entering the Heart of a City. We ended the drive quietly by hiding the Jeep in Brookland so it would be safe until we got back.

We clipped our way in high heels to the Metro, passed under a bridge and hurried down the stairs to the platform--time was beginning to run out for us to reach the bus. We were already on the Red line so we didn't make any cross-overs. Chinatown was above us when we came up out of the gritty tunnel.

It was like watching the world for a minute while riding a carnival. The ride stopped when Dana gasped at a touch on her shoulder and the images came into focus as I recognized Brooks and Travis. We said quick hellos and then the colors began to fly again as we three left Travis at the intersection to catch the Chinatown Bus.

Get ready, 'cause here I come ...

Oaky. I'm coming up on Thursday night and will have some time on Friday to visit. But you all will be in NYC, no? Katie is not going to be able to make it up for this trip, since her thesis has to get done by the end of the week. So she must plow ahead.

I'm already planning the roadtrip music:

Dylan
Radiohead
Woody Guthrie
Robert Johnson
Sebadoh
The Pixies
The Kinks
The White Stripes
Death Cab for Cutie
Hank Williams
Patsy Cline
American Graffitti soundtrack ...

But I've got to read a lovely-looking 18th Cent. Brit. play called The London Merchant, read critcism on Oroonoko, and hold teacher/student conferences with my kiddos before I can go. And see some fireworks tomorrow night.