Providence and Vermont Avenue

Lessons in dreaming out loud

My house needs cleaning and serves as a worthy distraction. Writing progress slows to a crawl even before a work trip to Washington, D.C. changes my routine. I think about phoning this one in. It’s been a while since I fell back on just a few words and a photo. Maybe a sunset? We’ve had some nice ones lately. I decide to see how I feel after the staff meeting.

The drive into the northeast corner of the city is uneventful, pleasant even. I listen to my audiobook, Ann Patchett’s These Precious Days, which I’ve been finishing in hardback, unsuccessfully, for months. According to plan, I arrive at my destination well ahead of both nightfall and the predicted thunderstorms that soon throw rain onto the windows of my host’s house, windows I imagine vibrating a little as the skies timpani. My host is also my boss, and I think the world of her. She’s sharp, kind, and makes her work look easy, which I find to be mostly true of people who are very good at what they do.

I blow the air out of my lungs. I have no idea how long I’ve held it in.

The drive to the next day’s meeting is also uneventful, me following her for the 30-minutes it takes us to go four miles. I marvel at how the metropolis moves, vital juices flowing through a tangled network of veins in relentless cycles. I do not belong here, I think. Maybe, in time, I could learn to unclench my jaw, navigate the commotion without the predictable increase in heart rate and tightened grip on the steering wheel. As it is, every occasion is an odyssey. I blow the air out of my lungs. I have no idea how long I’ve held it in.

I can’t help wondering how people here make time for dreams when I can barely remember to breathe.

Dreaming out Loud: A 1940s film, an album by OneRepublic, and an intrepid team of food access and farming advocates working as a non-profit in Washington, D.C.

No sooner does the question surface than the answer comes. The van ahead is from Dreaming Out Loud an organization that operates two urban farms in the heart of this place as part of their work to build an equitable food system. I’ve been to one of those farms, met the young staff, interacted with them again, and again after that, at training events and conferences. There is fire in their aspirations and so much enthusiasm. Who am I to assume dreaming is any less alive here?

Cyclists weave through and between the cars. Horns interject. An ambulance wails through an intersection. A block or two on, an advertisement on the side of a building makes me roll my eyes. “These people are thriving. Are you?” it reads.

I imagine the looks on the faces of the marketing professionals who believe subtle shaming will attract business. What do they know about thriving and whether their definition matches mine, or whether the people in that urban farm van would agree. I pass a ghost bike. What the hell does anyone know about the dreams of someone who doesn’t get the chance to fulfill them in this life?

“For as many times as the horrible thing happens, a thousand times in every day the horrible thing passes us by,” Ann Patchett says, relieved that her husband is not having a heart attack.

I follow my boss all the way to the parking garage, take a picture of the space number, reach back for the ticket in case there’s an opportunity to validate it, then chatter away as we walk the short distance to the office.

My colleagues and I spend the rest of the day envisioning the work we see ourselves doing in the next few years. There’s no way we can accomplish all that’s needed, so we ask ourselves which parts we are best suited to address. Our thoughts are weighty, but there is no shortage of laughter. By the time we conclude, my brain feels like it’s been running circuits at the gym. Some people stick around for happy hour, but I decide to hit the road.

Getting out of the city is chaotic. As I’m prone to doing, I take a wrong turn. I’m still on foot, just making my way into the parking garage. I tell the attendant, who can’t begin to know how thankful I am to see him, that I’m looking for level L1. He shakes his head and tells me in broken English that there is no such thing.

I wonder how long it takes for dog pee to dry or when the next rain will come to wash it away.

I give him the paper ticket, the one I very nearly left behind when I tumbled out of my car before eight o’clock this morning already carrying a few too many ideas in my head and a ridiculous assortment of things in my arms. He studies it, frowns, spins the chair in his puny booth to push numbers into a phone, which is about all that will fit on the little desk. A woman answers, he talks, she clarifies, they are both cheerful.

The man, slight of build and possibly younger than he looks, leaves his cubicle and heads up the ramp as I trail behind. Outside in the spring sunlight, he points in the direction from which I’ve just come, then lists the names of each of the three streets I’ll cross to get where I need to go.

Many times in the past, I’ve needed to think hard to pick my wheels out of a swarm of nondescript vehicles collected in some car park or other, but I’ve never lost the garage itself. It is a beautiful day to retrace three minutes’ worth of walking. I enjoy the exercise.

Success! I say “thank you” out loud and am ready to get underway, tense but resolved. It’s rush hour in the nation’s capital and there is nothing I can do about it. Slight right, next light, fourth exit–I follow the GPS directions attentively. Progress is plodding but steady. There’s a lady leaning against a lamp post. There’s a lady whose Irish wolfhound is lifting his leg on a different lamp post at the same height as the resting spot of the first lady’s backside. I wonder how long it takes for dog pee to dry or when the next rain will come to wash it away.

Suddenly, damn! There goes that! I can’t possibly negotiate the required left from the lane I’m in. Instead, I inch slowly and carefully through the red light to make a right turn. In the same instant that the tall man on the corner with the short gray beard yells, I see the arrows all pointing at me. “Wrong way!”

Were providence not already part of my paradigm, in that moment I’d have made a snap conversion right there in the middle of Vermont Avenue. Before the city propels three lanes of oncoming traffic at me, I have both time and space to swing a wide arc, redirect, and aim the front of my vehicle, albeit at an awkward angle, back in the direction I needed to go in the first place. It is a miracle in its own right but even more wondrous in the absence of a single blaring horn. Not one!

The rest of the drive eventually becomes uneventful, a 46-mile run with no turns and few delays. Ann Patchett’s voice rides long with me. "We don't deserve anything—not the suffering and not the golden light. It just comes," she says.

There are people who make their way, everyday, on congested roads. There are those for whom impossible stunts are not just familiar but intentional. I am not among them. I am a silver-haired woman who lives where farm combines are a hundred times more likely to bottleneck a road than too many cars. Though I’ve made similar trips for decades, I am a greenhorn each time. And each time, I’m convinced the city senses my discomfort and contemplates eating me alive. But it doesn’t, or it hasn’t yet. Instead, it shakes its head, gives me glimpses of its divinity, and sends me on my way.

~Elizabeth

The best part comes next, the part where I get to hear from you. Writing is a solitary experience, and my introversion appreciates that, but I’m thrilled to also have the chance to get your perspective. Are you a city dweller who thinks nothing of scenes like those I’ve described here? Maybe you’re more of a public transportation sort? Tell me more in the comments.

And if that’s more than you can take on today, or any day, please, please take a moment to like the post (it’s the heart button at the top!), restack it, or pass it along to someone you think would appreciate it. I ask this every week. I know that hundreds read but few engage. I don’t take it personally, but it does limit my ability to connect with more readers, which might encourage you to go for it.

I’m grateful for all the ways you connect, here, there, from a wide open country road or going the wrong way on a downtown street. Thank you!

See you next time. Until then, take good care.

If my writing and what we are building together brings value to you, I hope you’ll consider either a paid subscription option, which can be accessed here, or a one-time donation, accessible here. I want to continue creating avenues for connection that aren’t tied to our wallets, but for those who have the means, it would mean the world to me.