'el dolor infinito' (7/11)

The White House

This past weekend I went to DC to meet up with a few of the other interns. I was hesitant to go, a combination of shyness, nerves, and a reluctance to spend money made me not want to make the trip at first.

I decided to go because

1. Cabin fever is creeping in.
2. I told myself I would try to get to know the other interns.
3. I got the news about my father's deployment a few hours before I left, so I figured I should do something instead of letting myself wallow.

I like DC. Maybe better than New York, which is always a little smelly in some places and definitely confusing to navigate. (I swear the subway system was designed by a four year old with a case of the scribbles.)

We went to the Smithsonian Museum of American Art first. I know a lot of people aren't terribly interested in art, but I love it. I love being able to stand in front of a piece of transformed canvas, and being able to look into the very mind and soul of the artist as I trace the smooth lines of brushes and paints. I especially liked the portrait gallery- the had all these card-sized photographs of Civil War generals. It was a little odd to realize that those legendary men looked like everyone else. I bet you've never thought about Ulysses S. Grant's nose, have you? I could have spent hours there, falling in love with every person ever painted and swooning at the sight of the landscapes in their intricate frames.

One of my favourite pieces from the
Smithsonian Museum of American Art.

We went to a couple different Smithsonians throughout the day, each one getting more crowded as the heat steadily rose. Ahhh, to have been walking on sidewalks.

Later in the evening we went to the movies, which I wasn't super excited about- why would I drive four hours to do something I can do anywhere? Anyway!

Afterwards, the other people I was with decided they wanted to try to find a club. I didn't feel like driving around an unfamiliar city at one in the morning, and with us all being under 21 anyway...

Well, I tagged along. We walked all up and down the street, I was dodging girls in skirts and guys in polos or sketchy tank tops as if the street were a side scroller. It was like that first awkward semester at college as you try so desperately to find out what's going on.
The one place we did end up going into was a little cafe/restaurant/bookstore called Poets and Busboys. It was perfect, and full of my fellow young, disenchanted, educated twenty-somethings. All I had wanted to do was check out a bookstore, and at 2 am on a Saturday night, I did just that.

My favourite from the sculpture garden near
 the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

I scoured the bargain bookshelves, poking around until I found a $5 book of new latino poetry. When I went up to the counter to pay, Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desperada, originally) was sitting on the counter. The book was small and slender, and $13. I had heard of Neruda before, so on a whim I slapped it on top of my other book of poems.

The young woman and the counter eyeballed my books, and then me. 'Pablo Neruda, hm?'

I told her I was feeling a little bit brown today, and she brightened up, asking me where my parents were from. So I told her, 'My grandparents are from Mexico, but we're mostly in California now.'

'Oh! Are you from LA? I'm from LA.'

We talked for a little bit, about how we both ended up so far from home. We talked about not finding tortillas, peppers, panaderias. She is working on her masters and with an education-based nonprofit called Teaching for Change. She told me to go to Brooklyn after I told her I was in school in New York. She said its full of Mexicans, and a lot of them don't even speak Spanish.

I'll make my pilgrimage to this perfect land, where I would belong completely, in the spring.

The Mural at the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space

I didn't learn her name, but as I handed her my signed receipt she told me, 'If you're ever in the area, and if you ever need anything, let me know. Definitely come back and visit.'

That was the highlight of my trip- it was a perfect moment, unexpected and comforting on this curiously different coast. And of course, books. I've been picking apart Neruda's poetry, using it to brush up on my Spanish and add words to my vocabulary. It's so beautiful, to read alound and mull over the lyric, romantic syllables. Neruda believed in the power and poignancy of the personal symbol and the personal spirituality through one's surroundings. His work and the marriage of the wonderfully painted scenes of his homeland in Chile with the images of those he loves and their signifigance to him describe flawlessly what goes on in my own busy head.