Washington, D.C.

So…..October happened. As did the election. [insert whatever emotional response you need here. it’s a safe space. go ahead.] And now we are more than halfway through November and every day it gets closer and closer to being completely dark outside by 4:30 p.m. However, we are also less than one week away from Thanksgiving, so things are looking up.

Many words regarding the past 45 days our nation has weathered will be written in the months and years and decades ahead. I may well have some to share myself one day. But for now, here’s a little visual recap, perhaps a slightly poignant one, from our early October trip to Washington, D.C.

It was a wedding that took us out to the capital city. We photographed the wedding festivities on a Saturday and then spent four more days wandering the city. Correction, three days wandering. We took Sunday to sleep in, eat a late lunch, transport eight bags full of camera gear to a new hotel (hotel points, baby!), and then watch the second presidential debate (le sigh).

Come Monday, it was time for exploration. We have both been to D.C. a handful of times before. (Once when I was a much smaller tyke, I visited with my family and I seem to remember an incident where my parents got my brother (then no more than 5, maybe?) a toy, metal airplane at the National Air and Space Museum and he proceeded to test its flight readiness by throwing it off the upstairs balcony back at home. Science at work.) As such, we didn’t feel the need to see EVERYTHING. Instead, we chose a few museums, walked and walked and walked, saw monuments, ate food, and ventured into a subterranean bar where I swear we could have done some political wheeling and dealing if we just had the right can-do attitude. And you know, any kind of actual standing in the world of D.C. politics.

I am a huge history nerd. Hardcore. History makes my heart go pitter-patter in a real serious way. So a place like the District of Columbia—with everything it has seen, experienced, and offered to us over the course of its history—commands my whole person, from eyeballs to heartstrings, to take note. “See what’s there before you,” it states. “Bear witness to what has happened and what more we all still owe to each other.”

Our nation has a complicated, often grand, sometimes dubious, history. We have come a long way; there is still so far to go. I hope we can each show one another the respect, dignity, and love that is inherently necessary to keep this great experiment moving forward. Let’s all play a part, yeah?

xoxo. love you, guys.

SIGNED, anya elise