DC Street Architecture, A Relationship Unfolding, And A Few Books Thrown In
Paramendra Bhagat
July 19, 2002

Restaurants overflowing onto sprawling sidewalks, street musicians near DuPont Circle going gaga, buildings not too tall, a sun not too hot, the lazy Potomac, in a glimpse here, a glimpse there, the trim prim doing the professional catwalks, the Mall now derobed of the Silk Road Festival, a truly millenial celebration in the heart of the city, water fountains inviting a psychological cool, and the murmur of the water making vain attempts to drown out the urban turpor, the smell of sun on tar, rubber rubbing ceaselessly --- it is only in long, aimless, long strolls that I can even pretend to be discovering DC.

The pain that is a relationship, the discovery of oneself and some other, in little, private, not so private, daily details, the joy, the utter joy during moments of communication when the disparate become a whole, the swift breeze and the small talk round the street corner and an embrace all become one continuous story, and the lapses into miscommunication, of the claim for individual space trying to accomodate, na, celebrate the presence of the other, attempts to cease to project oneself on the other, to instead try and savor the suspense around the discovery as the other unfolds, sometimes in infrequent details from the past that inform, startle, then inform, fill details, ignite imagination --- I have vivid memories of how lonely I was as a person before I embarked upon this relationship.

The story of a French woman, an art critic of some renown, who claims to have fucked hundreds of men - "Yeah, I have seen that book in stores," Lara deadpans - often in overflowing orgies, at parties, in parks, parking garages, by being "available," who, at 35, observes it is about time she focused on, maybe, her own pleasure, in the European bestseller now translated into English,The Sexual Life Of Catherine M., by Catherine Millet, or my first reading of Albert Camus, The Stranger, a writer Bobby Kennedy sought refuge in supposedly after his brother had been shot dead, the articulation of an emptiness that becomes harder to discard once portrayed by a gifted artist, the short, precise sentences that become a story of unsuspecting depth, or Citizen McCain by Elizabeth Drew, the story of campaign finance reform as lived by a Republican renegade who deserves obvious respect, besides the insights into the way strings are pulled on Capitol Hill --- I found myself making the most of the local library once they issued me a card because I had sent myself a postcard at the local address.

References

• Albert Camus
• Interview: Catherine Millet
• Senator John McCain