Twilight tonight was quiet and misty, perfect for a twenty-minute walk from my office downtown up to my house. Most nights I’m too tired to walk, preferring to sink into a seat on the bus, but sometimes it just feels necessary, almost cathartic. Somewhere after Massachusetts Avenue the streets narrow, the enveloping tree canopy always encouraging me to shake off the workday and clear my mind of petty stress.
At the end of the walk tonight as I turned onto my block, I heard the gentle clip-clop of a horse’s hooves. It could almost be 1890. Wait, Halloween was weeks ago – what, am I so exhausted that I’m hearing phantom horses now?
No, just an officer of the House-mounted unit of the US Park Police, guiding a superbly beautiful chestnut down my street. Though I’m close to Logan Circle, it’s a rare sight to have a horse actually in front of my house. The pair seemed so confident and steady, the horse’s coat gleaming in the light of the streetlamp. I stopped on my porch and watched them pass by, horse and rider, as the sound echoed tranquilly through the night.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
As one of the founding editors of We Love DC, Jenn’s passions are theater and cocktails. After two decades in the city, she’s loved every quirky, mundane, elegant, rude minute of her DC life. A proud advocate for DC’s talented drinks scene, she’s judged the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s ARTINI contest, the DC Rickey Month contest, the Jefferson Hotel’s Quill Cocktail competition, and is a founding member of LUPEC DC. A graduate of Catholic University’s drama program, she toured the country as a member of National Players, and has been both an actor and a costume designer before jumping the aisle to theater criticism. Writing for We Love DC restored her happiness after a life-threatening illness, and she’s grateful to you, dear readers. Send your suggestions to jenn (at) welovedc (dot) com and follow her on Twitter.
