Tag Archives: Introduction

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Why I Love DC: Carl Weaver

Before the big party IMGP0048I first came to DC as a child on one of my family’s vacations. We were lucky enough to have family here and thus a place to stay and all I remember is walking for what seemed like forever along streets lined with monuments and statues, foreign flags and a sense of majesty. I loved it immediately and we returned many times.

When my lovely wife and I had the opportunity to move here a couple years ago we jumped at the chance. We figured that the DC area was the perfect balance between not too cold (my requirement after living in the frigid north for eight years) and cosmopolitan and progressive (her requirement after living in my southern homeland before we moved north).

DC seemed like a negotiated agreement when we first got here but I quickly fell back in love with it for different reasons than previously. There is a sense of energy and excitement here that I have not felt elsewhere. Maybe it’s because of the constant influx of young, idealistic people to the area for their internships or first jobs. Maybe it’s just that national news is local news here. Maybe it’s the politics. Maybe it’s the tons and tons of free culture available. It’s all good, whatever it comes from.

Despite the sense of this being a very international, cosmopolitan area, I also find many of the people here approachable. It’s not like Boston, where I often found myself looking down to the cold street. Here you can say good morning to people, as I did back home, and hold the door and get a thank-you. You can get to know people in ways that you can’t up north.

I love DC. Nothing could please me more than calling this place my home.

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Why I Love DC: Ben H. Rome

Lincoln Kaliedoscope
So here we are. New website, new look, new day. And yet, fundamentally at the core of all this shiny stuff is a very deceptively simple question: “Why do you love DC?”

And before we go any further on this new journey together, I have to answer it. Partially out of obligation (Tom made me!) and partially out of the fact that how can you, our soon-to-be constant repeat visitor, continue coming here if you don’t know why we love DC?

Since I cannot answer for my fellow authors, I have to take the stab myself. And gladly. Continue reading →

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Why I Love DC: Don

If you think I’m wrong, say so, but I’d suggest that it’s a lot easier to talk about why you dislike something than why you hate something. Hate or simple dislike is easy. One or two things bug you enough that it outweighs your enjoyment, and identifying them is simple. After all, they’re eating at you. Love and like are harder. People, meals, paintings, songs, places… we love them not for that one trait, that particular spice, that bassline, but because they add up to something more.

I’m having that problem telling you what it is that I love about DC. I could fill your screen with all the things here that delight me, but I don’t think that would really answer the question. Besides, so many things you could respond by saying “you could have that lots of places.” For instance – having grown up in Miami, I can put seasons near the top of the list. I think those of you who grew up seeing fall colors don’t fully grasp the magic. There’s a subtlety to the change that sneaks up on me. Perhaps it’s different for some of you, but every April I have a moment where I suddenly realize I can’t see through that cluster of trees – where’d those leaves come from all of a sudden?

Some things are a little more specifically regional, like Maryland Blue Crab. More specific to us, I love the Smithsonian, not just because it’s wonderful, but because it has completely ruined me for museums everywhere else I travel in the world. Wait, I have to pay to get in? Are you nuts? The way I feel when I look down the mall and see the Washington Monument, which in my six years here I don’t think has ever failed to make me smile… can I even claim that a feeling is a reason? That’s like saying I love DC because I love DC.

Maybe that is the reason. I love it because it’s never stopped giving me things about it to love. Weather, museums, scenic vistas, music, theater, sports, events… Its no different than loving a person – you could certainly get some or all of those things elsewhere, but that entire package together in that ratio is unique, and it keeps giving. The most recent treasure DC gave me was that my darling girlfriend agreed to become my darling fiancée here – on the under-appreciated Roosevelt Island – and that’s going to be a hard one to top.

But I’ve got faith.