Ilivethebeat

Just the other day I landed a nice little part time right smack in the middle of downtown. Coming up the escalator, I immediately began to hear a saxophone wail away as if to welcome my entrance onto the city streets above. I felt the sun pierce fiercely into my eyes through my shades as the sound of a Navy band began to play. The saxophone was smooth and warm and I couldn’t help but notice the abrupt change of my environment. I had hopped onto the metro from King St.  and within twenty minutes I had arrived at the very heart of DC, at the height of lunch time hours on a very busy, sunny weekday afternoon. The music embodied the feeling that I got in that busy street corner just blocks away from the US Capitol. It carried me into some surreal jazz induced dream where everyone around me seemed to be a part of a very well rehearsed play.  Within the few minutes that I had arrived, a bum had fallen into a fountain and nearly drowned himself. People rushed to come save the man until finally paramedics arrived on the scene within minutes. How exciting, this just didn’t seem to be real. You would never see this kind of thing where I was from. For the brief moments that I walked aimlessly onto the Navy-Archives Memorial, I completely forgot about my new part time job walking dogs.

Yes, I had come to this beautiful metropolis to walk rich people’s dogs, but it didn’t matter. Half the reason for why I took the job was so that I could walk through the busy streets of NW and the cozy Burroughs over at DuPont. You would never find me feel so mesmerized by my neighborhood in Northern Virginia. The people there and the architecture seem to lack in personality. It’s certainly not alive enough for my taste. But the city makes me feel inspired for some odd reason. Not only did I get to experience the city’s vibrancy, but every-time I walked into a client’s home to walk their dogs, I would submerse myself in what was indeed, fine DC living. These people had some nice pads, and I had the privilege of being offered a glimpse of something that I had truly never been exposed to. I walked those people’s dogs as if they were my own, as if I was a resident walking casually through my neighborhood absorbing the sights and the smells. I gawked at all the beautiful woman and I stared at the contours of the roof-lines above me, taking mental snapshots for me to take home. I wanted these sights to be my own, but it almost felt better just to dream or pretend that this was a part of my daily life. At least for now they would be with my new job.

When I was done for the day, I perused my way through town from DuPont Circle to 14th St. It’s not that I had never been into DC before, I just had never appreciated it so much as I have now. I left a good three hours after my job was officially over for the day and I noticed how people rushed to their homes walking desperately to catch the trains out of town. If only there was a place for me to stay, or place for me to fit in. When I think about that day, I tell myself that I must fit in, if not in DC then where else? I guess I must explain how peculiar I feel living in Northern Virginia. But this also brings about the question of what in fact makes it so perculiar to live just across the bridge in Alexandria. That probably leads to the question of who I am and what my purpose is here in this town. I leave these questions for tomorrow. I need to rest my feet because tomorrow, I must walk more dogs. It’s going to be a beautiful day in the city.

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