It has been years since I have flown directly into Washington. Living in Baltimore, it was always more convenient for me to use BWI. This afternoon was one of those moments that gives even the cynical and jaded bastards among us a moment of pause… following the Potomac north the City spreads out from the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials in the West (ever stopped to think that the two presidents most identified with “the west” have their memorials on the west end of the Mall?) to the dome of the Capitol in the east. It’s later afternoon and the marble of the official city of Washington is catching the last orange rays of the day’s sun. It absolutely glows. Working here for the better part of four years, you grow a little immune to the charms of this place. You never really stop to look because you’re on a mad dash to the next meeting or trying to get home before the rush hour really gets fired up.

It’s good to be back here, in this place, in the beating heart of the American empire. Of course it’s even better to know that all I have to do is walk downstairs and hail a cab in the morning and someone else will drive me to work, too.