Just one day

Today was one of those days I genuinely enjoyed being alive.

No alarm was set to wake me; the taxpayers’ dollars were at rest today (at least where domestic staff salaries were concerned). But I gained cognizance around 9 on account of the bright sunshine pouring in from the window on the far side of the room. Overnight rain and wind had cleared the air, leaving a pristine path for sunbeams. I threw open the window over my bed and eagerly put my hands to the screen that separated me from the outdoors. I found the ambient air neither hot nor cold. That meant it was perfect. I stepped out of bed just long enough to open the other window and grab my Bible. As I read, a wind tunnel was created, and the lace curtains danced in and out of the invisible breeze. It is hard to imagine, as Emily reminded me later, that it was over President’s Day weekend in 2003 that some two feet of snow fell in Northern Virginia.

I donned my soft new robe and puttered downstairs. Chopping and sautéing was needed on account of a casserole I am planning for tomorrow night, and I figured I would get it out of the way so I wouldn’t have to worry about it until the ingredients needed to be thrown together. I enjoyed hovering over the stove for a good forty minutes. Emily was up by that time and undertook the sacred daily tradition of coffee making as I typed up this week’s sermon summary. So nice to get those little responsibilities out of the way.

After a breakfast of spinach and broccoli bounded together by scrambled eggs and cream cheese (we were getting our iron quotient out of the way for the week), it was decided that I would join Em so she could show me around campus. It was also decided by Em that there are some things we are never meant to understand, “such as the Trinity and why we can’t get Trader Joe’s pizza dough to rise.”

Quite.

So off to the charming borough of Brookland we went. It was an insane, unseasonable, and wonderful 70 degrees when we left Alexandria, moderately sized puffy clouds racing across a sea blue sky. I kept my window cracked in the truck as long as I could before the wind proved too much for me. I wanted to take in as much of the warm air as possible.

After following Em around for about twenty minutes, she had to go to class. I found a bench along a well-traveled path near what I derived to be the center of campus, and sat, and wrote. In between paragraphs of journaling I watched students and faculty pass by – a graying priest, a young couple who seemed wholly preoccupied with where their hands should be on each other (who changed their minds on the subject ever 5 seconds), a boy who looked 10 years my junior, myriads of youth “plugged in” by means of a cell phone (you’d think you could keep your voice down somewhat, even if you’re outside) or an iPod. I hadn’t touched my journal since the first of the year (bad Lee), so it was good to catch up.

For some time, I enjoyed feeling the warm sun on my skin – the peasant-cut top I was wearing gave me good exposure to the rays. But there was one problem as my hour outside progressed. More clouds began to pile up, darker in hue than their predecessors earlier in the day, and the wind became stronger. I perceived a temperate drop and soon had to pull my khacki jacket back over my arms. Slightly annoyed, I packed up my things to meet Em after her class.

By the time we relocated to the campus Starbucks, the floodgates of heaven opened. Lacking a real jacket (or umbrella, for that matter), my journey to the Metro was becoming increasingly perilous. Perhaps that it what made me savor my skinny mocha that much more. I checked the weather via my Berry, which reported that it was indeed raining, but the chance of showers throughout the afternoon remained what it had been that morning: 20 percent.

Today was a day when 20 percent was all the chance it needed. I found my way to the Metro among a steady andante staccato of large raindrops. My khaki jacket changed to a darker, damper hue, and my hair was plastered against my head. But I did not care: it was not that cold, and when was the last time I got to walk in the rain? I reasoned that it does a girl good to look like a drowned rat every once in a while. I had no one to impress.

The train took me from northeast to territory far more familiar to me, and eventually across the moat into Pentagon City. I wandered around the mall for a while, trying on a suit but finding too many faults with it, gaping at the prices at that particular Ann Taylor. Outside one of the stores I found myself facing a troupe of youngsters on their 8^th grade field trip. At first wanting to circumnavigate the group as soon as possible, one of the girls caught my eye. I was reminded that I too had once been let loose in Pentagon City as a 13 year old, and here I was, face to face with someone who could, in a decade, be in my shoes. So I smiled, and she timidly reciprocated. I hope she finds what she’s looking for. (In life, not the mall, for you literalists out there.)

From Pentagon City, the train lifted me north to Arlington, where I attended my second night of dance lessons. The waltz I have down quite well, and tango and triple swing have promise, but I’ve settled on the rumba as my favorite thus far. One of my favorite partners is a man in his 80s who told me he has been dancing since he was 16 – and I believe it. There is no choppiness to his movements, not an inkling of uncertainly. He is a partner who truly makes a lady feel like she is floating on the dance floor.

Wonderful Em came to pick me up from class so I would not have to be on the Metro till all hours. I am now clean and warm, full of ice cream, and waiting for Sarah’s call so we can pick her up from the airport.

I suppose it is a good thing temperatures have already dropped back to seasonal levels, and will remain there the rest of the week. Otherwise, if the sun shone through my window tomorrow morning as it did a few short hours ago, I’d be tempted to do it all over again…