Saturday, August 2, 2008

D.C./Virginia Day 2

Welcome to Mount Vernon, the estate of President George Washington.
Now I'm a real sucker for history. I almost majored in it, but memorizing those dates... well I just couldn't pull it off. That hasn't deterred my passion for it, though! This is one of the reasons I was so excited to spend the afternoon with my mother here. The house is only about ten minutes down the road, so I can't really express my surprise at how such an amazing, important place could be so close. Let's get to the good stuff, eh?
The house was beautiful, through and through. I have pictures a plenty, and I'll show you all of them when I get back (ask about the turkey cloud) but these three will have to tide you over for now. We walked into the dining room where Washington was informed he was going to be the first president, passed by his bedroom, and gazed upon the very bed he died in. Morbid? Perhaps. Muting in its simple elegance and importance? Most definitely. I was speechless. The idea, the very implication of the men that stood in that house— the very fathers of our nation that walked across the same floors that I was walking across, looking into the original mirrors and knowing that some of the most amazing people in history looked back through that glass was... well, numbing in its beauty. 
My mother and the Potomac. The first picture is the back of the house, where Mommy Dearest and I were standing in this picture. Apparently Ol' Man Washington loved landscapes, farming, and pictures of water. Imagine living with the Potomac at your fingertips. Below is a picture of part of the farm. The original property stretches for miles and miles, whole neighborhoods have been built on sections of it, causing residents to say that they "live on the farm." This was actually on the path to the Tomb of Washington himself. There it sits, behind steel bars, above ground. His white stone coffin, above ground with Martha (his wife) lain at a somewhat obscure angle to the left. Behind is a very small gate to the rest of the tomb which holds upwards of twenty-five family members. 
I had an interesting conversation with my father on the way home from the X-Files movie about how this all made me feel. Ever since I was a little kid I thought it was kind of tacky, perhaps "old man-ish" to say that I was "patriotic". Growing into an adult at the crest of the Iraq War only made me more reluctant to adopt the term (don't take my zeal in this paragraph as my approval of everything we are and do, that's not the case I'm making). But now, after just a brief wandering through our nation's nest and with so much more to some, I settled on a term. I like to consider myself a "patriot". Not in the Mel Gibson sense, I'm not thrusting Ol' Glory through the neck of a rather malicious British officer, but there is an elegance to the term that I think is lost in the word "patriotic". Blah, blah, they're the same, but really: which would you rather have describe you? I love our country. Do we have blotches in our history? Absolutely. Are we "da best country in da WORLD!!!!111!!! LOLOMG!!!" No, I'm sure there's probably better, but you know what? I am an American, I can claim this history as mine. The flaws, sure, we're learning. But the heroes: all mine as well. Go ahead, you can have them too.

Well that does it for day two. A tour of haunted Alexandria tomorrow, and then Monday brings the start of D.C. on foot. 

2 comments:

JonasAxel said...

i think i heard the sound of "i'm proud to be an american," in the background as i read this post. i tend to agree and love that area. i have personally teared up looking at the monuments several times.

miss you- lets have coffee when you come home.

Dianne Poinski said...

Hello Kyle!
It was great meeting you last weekend! I loved this post. I hope to get a chance to read some more later.
Have a great trip!