One of the reasons I love living in Washington, D.C. is because it reminds me of home, or more precisely, the community that I grew up in. Bryn Gweled was (and still is) an intentional community founded by Quakers with the twin ideals of diversity and sustainability. Bryn Gweled welcomed people of different races, religions and classes, and its members were the first to bring African-American, Jewish and Asian families into the rolling hills of what was then a very rural county just outside Philadelphia. One of my best friends as a child was African-American, and in my memoir, Brassy Broad: How one journalist helped pave the way to #MeToo, I write about how welcomed I felt when I would traipse down the hill to Vanessa’s home to play with her at the age of 8 or 9. Vanessa’s parents, the descendants of slaves, often had me over for dinner when Vanessa and I, engrossed in our games, lost track of the time. I have felt similarly welcomed by the people who live in my Capitol Hill neighborhood. The men and women who swim at the local pool in Eastern Market are quite friendly, and before and after our swims, we enjoy chatting about what we’re cooking for the holidays and how cool or warm the water was that particular day.
Yes, there are car jackings and robberies in the area and stories of drivers who follow Amazon Prime trucks and dash out to steal packages if they are left outside and no one’s home. I guess I’m lucky to live in a building where packages are kept safe for you at the front desk and there is a concierge on duty 24 hours a day in case you lock yourself out (as I’ve already done once). They are also quick to call the police (as they did when somebody’s car was carjacked right out front of our building a month or two ago). As the building manager noted in an email, it’s not a wise idea to idle in your car on the street at 11 pm, but that’s true anywhere in D.C. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the police not only recovered the car but arrested both suspects in the car jacking. We all know crime exists in rural America as well; someone keeps stealing mail from the mailboxes on the very rural road I used to live on in West Virginia, and just look at what’s going on in Idaho these days.
The vast majority of district residents are not only law abiding, but as I mentioned before, quite cordial. And they confound my stereotypes every single day. A friend and I recently went on a meetup hike in Turkey Run Park, which is just over the border in Virginia and has stunning views of the Potomac River. I happened to hear that one young woman, who spoke with an accent, had taken an Uber all the way to the park (it’s accessible only by car and she doesn’t have one). So I offered her a ride to the nearest Metro after the hike. I thought perhaps she was a nurse or home health aide. But as my friend and I soon found out, she is a staff attorney with the DC Superior Court and had gone to Georgetown Law School, one of the best in the nation. So much for my preconceptions!
On another meetup stroll on the District Wharf the day before, I met a young man who looked as though he was from India or perhaps Bangladesh — I never did find out. He had a name I couldn’t pronounce, and I immediately pegged him as a student. But as we talked, I soon discovered that he is a quantum physicist who works for a company making quantum computers, which apparently is a rapidly-emerging technology that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems too complex for classical computers. I told him my story of interacting years ago with another quantum physicist who had just won the Nobel Prize for confirming a key aspect of Einstein’s theory of relativity. This physicist, Steven Weinberg, had explained the theory of relativity to me on a napkin in a Harvard cafeteria and I understand enough at the time to write about it. My newfound friend had never met Weinberg, who died a few years ago, but he said he very much enjoyed reading the textbooks Weinberg wrote. And all I could think was: This is why I very much enjoy living in DC!
