32 Days and Counting . . . and 4 of those days I'm back in Maryland/DC

It's a 5 hour flight from Portland to Dulles (non-stop) on United and I arrived at PDX in plenty of time for my flight. It's been 104-days since I left the MD/DC/VA area. For this trip - I packed only one carry-on and one personal item- just like the airline rules stipulate. Quickly exited the Dulles airport in a zippy dark blue Neon and headed east on the Toll-Road, then north on 495 following the signs for Baltimore. At 4 PM, traffic was already backed up on the American Legion Bridge heading towards Virginia. Only when I approached the convergence of 270 and 495 did the flow of traffic in my direction start to slow. But the Old Georgetown Road exit comes pretty quickly and I was off the beltway before the big beltway interchanges of Wisconsin and Connecticut Avenues.



As I drove the rental car toward Maryland and through downtown Bethesda, it was eerie to navigate the same old roads and familiar scenes but know that I couldn't 'go-home.' My last year in DC was so fractured with business travel that perhaps, now, every place I go just seems like another brief pit-stop and even my ties to MD/DC aren't as strong as I thought they were.

Later, I emerged out of Dupont Circle Metro to meet Catherine of the Calculus and her husband Nate 'Zach-Braff' Watkins for dinner, I saw the D2 bus zip past towards Glover Park where I once lived. And I saw the 42 bus roar up Connecticut - the bus I used to take to Adams Morgan where the company I worked for when I first arrived in DC was...er...'headquartered.




Over dinner at the new Heritage India (no finer Indian food in DC), Catherine, Nate, and I talked a lot about the present and the future. But we also talked about the past - studying in the common area of Alban Towers, making an almost inedible red-curry dish, the good ole days when we were 'just-students.' I have 5+ years of history here in DC. Two jobs, one degree, one marathon, a handful of friends, the start of a yoga practice, 4th of July picnics with Popeyes chicken, a tennis obssession, sultry summers, snow-silent cityscapes, a rat in the toilet, and so much more. The rhythm of daily DC life seems so distant now and a Portland rhythm is in utero. Perhaps in 32-days...

Maybe it's good to look at the past firmly in the eye to recognize it is no longer your present. On Saturday evening, I will board a non-stop flight out of Dulles to Portland. This 4-day visit MD/DC is just another brief pit-stop and I'm at home in the present.

However, I'm happy to say that I still can walk up the entire length of the Bethesda metro escalator and only puff just a little when I reach the top.