Those who live in DC and the surrounding areas have likely already heard the news of last night - that Capitol Hill’s Eastern Market, a 134 year old landmark in Southeast, had been gutted and destroyed by a fire that took fire fighters 2 hours to contain.
Mayor Fenty held a press conference this morning, donned in a fireman’s jacket, and vowed that the city would rebuild - that the vendors would be relocated. I hope they can do it quickly. The Eastern Market was a jubilant gathering of activity and solidarity, as much a symbol of the city’s youth and capacity for renewal as our stone and marble monuments are symbols of our history. The market had helped to revive the Capitol Hill area, providing an economic boon for its residents and serving as a proof of the resilience of the city.
Coverage from the Washington Post is here and here.
Friend Tom Bridge has coverage at Metblogs, while the DCist also had the story.
From Dictionary.com
an·thro·pol·o·gy (Än’thrÉ™-pÅl’É™-jÄ“)
n. 1. The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.
Anthropology is the study where we’ve been, how we got there, and how all of that got us here. We tend to apply the economies of scale to this science, looking at cultures and nations, but I think we may be better off applying the science to our lives.
When I think about my own development, I think about songs, meals, talks, videos, and moments. I think about the first time that I read The Fountainhead or saw Fight Club. I think about the first time I went to Mortons with two of my best friends after a long, difficult period during my life. I remember the first time that I had a really good wine.
I remember the nice man in Paris who gave me directions. I remember the little boy in Barcelona who tried to pick my pocket. I remember that unexpected smile.
Even when I’m on the ground I feel as if I’m suspended in air. Cruising at the speed of life. Knocked around by sudden gusts of turbulence. Occasionally a sharp drop and everyone in the cabin gasps. One wing and the horizon go vertical. I hit the flight attendant call button. A gin and tonic to ease the ride. Please keep your seat belt securely fastened. Life can get bumpy.
I’ve been traveling every week for the last month and a half. My eyelids are heavy.
I’ve made intermittent but admittedly half-hearted attempts to blog with words as much as I have with photography over the last few years, but have never seemed to be to accumulate much momentum - an odd fact, given my historical affinity for words.
The compulsion that’s leading me to write these words seems nascent and nebulous within me, but palpable nonetheless. As the seasons grudgingly give way to one another, my own life seems to be changing with much less of a fight. Home is a memory - a fragmented and pixelated color pattern on a piece of photo paper. Those that make up my few companions are both entering and leaving my life. I’m on a travel schedule that has instilled the sort of perpetual deja vu that Jack, the narrator from Fight Club, drowsily laments in the movie.
I can’t say that I’m rejuvenated or energized by any of this, but there is a sense of self inflicted ascetism as a result, perhaps the motivation for these words. I’m brought back, however, to the name of my photoblog, Liminality, meaning “the condition of being on a threshold or at the beginning of a process.” This term is often reserved for transitional stages in life, but I’m more and more convinced it is also perpetual. But the sense of being at the beginning of a process, at the beginning of a journey, on the threshold of something undifferentiated and unrealized, is cause for perpetual excitement.
I was fortunate enough to stumbe on the tour blog for one of my inspirations, Bjork, called “The Journey Itself is Home.” The title is taken from a haiku by Matsuo Basho: “The moon and sun are eternal travellers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat, or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.â€
