Cherry Blossom Rain

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ceme online terbaikThe cherry blossoms are out all across Washington, DC, but the weather is unseasonably cool. The skies are a steely grey and the wind is gentle but steady. It scatters the pink blossoms across the monotone background of pavement and sky. I’m reminded of my three years in Northern California where the weather was like this so often. This morning the rain is pouring down upon the traffic outside my hotel window, muting the city sounds. The car tires on the wet road sound like the distant ocean surf. I slept in this morning because I can but will soon head downstairs for the simpulan break-out sessions of the meeting.

The first evening of the meeting I met up with my cousin John, who commutes here weekly from Connecticut to do subcontracting work for FEMA, writing materials for corporations to use in the event of another disaster. We went to a book store café in Dupont Circle, and I bought Cormac McCarthy’s first novel, The Orchard Keeper.

Yesterday afternoon I went to lunch with a grad school friend who lives here. He used to write for the Washington Post before leaving to pursue his PhD. He’s ABD now and slowly working on a novel. At lunch we talked about his struggles teaching English in a charter middle school here in DC. The mostly African-American students seem to love having an African-American man in the classroom, and the teachers and administrators by and large love having someone just shy of a PhD teaching the students, but the typical problems of any school rear their head and make the job difficult—lack of administrative support, philosophical and pedagogical inconsistency between and among the teachers and administrators, colleagues whose teaching is suspect at best, students with myriad problems brought from home, disciplinary and attendance issues, as well as bureaucratic demands that detract from the teaching, and the odd balance between professional independence and abuse of that independence that seems to be a hallmark of charter schools.

In the morning, I had visited Senator Joe Lieberman’s office suite in the Hart Senate Office Building, where I met VERY briefly with his education secretary to ask her to urge the senator’s endorsement of the National Writing Project appropriation for 2010-2011. We’re seeking an increase of six million dollars over the current twenty-four million dollar appropriation. That afternoon I visited the offices of Representatives Courtney, Larson, and DeLauro. Colleagues from the Fairfield and Central sites accompanied me, and also hit up Representatives Murphy and Himes, and Senator Dodd. Our efforts are worthwhile, but, fortunately, almost unnecessary, as the Connecticut delegation tends to support the NWP. (Even the Republicans Shays and Simmons were supportive. Rob Simmons’ wife Heidi is a Teacher Consultant of the CWP, in fact). Courtney’s and Larson’s aides were very young. They could have been my students last spring, but they were bright and interested and asked lots of good questions.

Everyone is very busy here. It’s like a bee’s hive, just constant movement and activity. Every aide I have met with has been courteous and quick, but I haven’t spent five minutes with any of them.

Between meetings I watched the student groups that are all over the city, mostly eighth graders, I assume, going on their annual Washington, DC trip and making it coincide with the cherry blossoms. The kids are fun to watch. They all seem to be in such awe of the place, the grand buildings with their sweeping staircases and colonnades, the high ceilinged hallways of the office buildings, all the men and women in suits and the ubiquitous security presence, which unfortunately reminds me of Spain just after the death of Franco, when I studied abroad as a high schooler. Men in body armor and automatic weapons stood on every corner of Madrid. I don’t remember DC being like this when I came here at thirteen.

There is a Cherry Blossom Festival, too, and tourists from all over the world. Security guards and police officers are everywhere, and many of the streets that run between the legislative office buildings are blocked off for security, creating aesthetic eyesores and traffic congestion. I got hollered at this morning by a security guard because I took too long to place my bag on the belt for the security x-ray machine. I had just wanted to ask if I needed to remove my laptop, as is done in the airport. I was told no in a most stern voice, and then the other guard must have felt bad about the poor treatment I had received, and she silently reprimanded her partner, and then very politely offered her assistance directing me wherever I needed to go.

Later this afternoon I will meet up with a colleague who is here on research leave from UConn, working on a book. She’s a Shakespeare specialist and spends inordinate amounts of time holed up in the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is just around the corner from the legislative office buildings. Normally she might like to get out into the daylight for some coffee, but on a rainy day like today she might just as soon stay ensconced in a study carrel.

I’m struck by the complex beauty of all that I see here, which seems embodied by the cherry blossoms against the greyness of concrete and leaden skies. There is the contrast between heavily armed guards and jubilant young students; there is my cousin the movie maker who is so far from his family and preparing for disasters yet to come; there’s my friend, the former journalist turned PhD candidate cum novelist who has been struggling to teach eighth graders, and my colleague the Shakespeare scholar in her solitary pursuit of knowledge; and there are all the hundreds of writing project teacher consultants here to lobby for money for teacher professional development. Everyone is here in pursuit of knowledge to share, and all of us are grappling with the various challenges of opportunity, inspiration, funding, and more.