I'm going to lay out my Friday night for you: with a hungry stomach, wandering eyes, and a book of Maile Meloy's short fiction at my side, I'm sitting in Busboys and Poets-- a restaurant/bookstore/cafe on 14th street in DC, thanks to Langston Hughes. My cell phone is by my right side, the screen still dewy with oil from my face when I spoke with my landlord several minutes ago. I just ordered a water (I'm on a tight budget) and a chicken quesadilla (nothing fancy or risky, I know, but I'm hungry NOW), and am giving my hostess and her husband some alone time at home before he leaves on a trip to Denver for 7 weeks. The guy sitting across from me has an angular scar on his forehead stretching from the inner edge of his eyebrow to the crease in the middle of his forehead, and because he doesn't look like a fighter I'm guessing he tripped and fell on the playground when he was younger. It's really busy here, and as with all other places I've been to in DC alone, I haven't recognized a face. It's a fantastic way to start the weekend.
I realize I haven't blogged in a while, but trust me, there's been good reason: moving here and getting myself acclimated (clearly, I'm going to be doing that for a while) has been, thus far, one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. And time-consuming as shit. I started working at my preschool the second day that I got into the city, and since then I've not taken a back seat. I've been commuting five days a week (believe people when they tell you how much traffic here f****** blows, and that Maryland drivers are idiots), I'm giving and receiving more love than I ever have every day while working with my preschool kids, I've been trying to meet up with people from Bread Loaf/locals on the weekends, I've explored a bit on my own, I'm learning (and getting better every day) how to navigate the metro lines most conveniently, I've smoked hookah for the first time in my life, I've sat down to dinner with my gracious hosts for delicious meals a handful of times, I've clutched my purse walking down the sidewalk more than once, I've had a few staring contests with people on the metro, I've gotten into clawing matches with Tommy (my cat, if you weren't aware-- he has been pretty much confined to a bedroom since arrival and is now taking it out on me), I've found an awesome place to watch my Buffalo sports teams lose, I've signed up for a free "dating" website (it's really more like Facebook for people who are willing to meet strange people in strange places) and I've even gone on a date (let's put it this way: there wasn't a second, but still fun and totally something I'd do over again). In fact, I've got another one tomorrow night (which I'm pretty excited about). Three weeks-- not too shabby, Coffta.
There is a reason why people live in cities: because it pumps life into your veins when you thought you were on your last legs. I feel renewed, refreshed, revived, and in some ways (as corny as it may sound) reborn. I feel like I've always lived here. I feel like the sidewalk was cracked for me to walk on, however long I might stay. I feel like before moving here, I was trapped in my own spiderweb of "what ifs", and now I'm devouring the "now I know" like a starved child. I needed to escape, I needed to breathe new air, I needed to hurt people, I needed to be alone in the tidal wave of a billion foreign faces that mean nothing to me. Because now I know what it feels like to survive unhappiness, to break away from something you didn't know you didn't need until you didn't need it anymore.
Cop lights are flashing in the window behind me, "Bartender" by T-Pain is playing over the speakers next to my table, and at the table to my left a guy is simultaneously drinking a beer, dipping pita in homemade hummus, reading David Sedaris, and smiling. I love DC. I am content.
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