"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just." -Abraham Lincoln
Ford's Theater is still there. The city has built up around it, but much of the original place has been preserved. The box where Lincoln was sitting is there for viewing, free of charge if you just walk up on the street. You can go in, see a humble museum that features a blood-soaked pillow and the small gun, and (according to Robert the security guard) if you're not there in the springtime (when busloads of school children are brought in from all over the country) you can waltz right up and look at the very spot where our captain's fearful trip came to an end. I look and take pictures and hold back tears. I am uninterrupted.
The theater is still functional. As I look at the box where Booth put a gun to the head of perhaps the greatest President this country has ever seen, pulled the trigger, and jumped to the stage to escape out the back door, tech people are on that stage taking down set pieces from 'A Christmas Carol'. Everyone is thinking about something else and I am alone with Box 8 for a few minutes. Robert tries to assure me that people are interested in this place, but even he doesn't sound convinced. It's a place in DC that everyone should see. It is significant. It's a reminder of the price we can pay for actions that are just. It is a reminder that there are people on both sides of a cause, and both sides believe their struggle to be worthy of sacrifice.
I chat with Robert for a little while. I tell him that I made the rounds on the mall last night after the sun went down. "Oh, then you saw a unique sight," he says.
"What?"
"The Washington monument with no lights on it. People were pretty pissed about it. Something went wrong and the thing was dark last night."
"Oh, man," I say, "I even took pictures of it."
"People will be able to look at those pictures after you're dead, and they'll be able to figure out exactly what day they were taken."
Wow. Standing here, in a place where such important events in the history of our country took place, during a time of great upheaval, I am reminded that I live in similar times. I am here to see it, to familiarize myself with it. I am here to find the resistance to power and corruption, and I am here to remember why we must sometimes fight for the things and ideas that are of value. To me, only progress falls into that category, and I get the feeling that we have stalled out, are even backsliding. I have never felt it before. Politics have never interested me. Until just this moment, they seemed frivolous and bloated. Things have changed and it is time for me to pay attention, to make a contribution to this world, if I can. It is an odd philosophy that is growing in my mind. On the one hand, I am trying to choose unattachment. I try to see how everything is moving towards the proper growth and progress, that there will be a time and a place for everything and there is no reason to be upset. Then, I know that I must do what I must. I may have to pick a side, somewhere to stand where I feel like I can be of help, even though I see that there is always movement, regardless of our own perception and participation in it. The lessons are for me, but the actions dictate who I am in this place.
Today, I know that I cannot march on the capital. I cannot erase the sins of the past or make an impact on the path of the future. I am close to the action but I am not yet in the fight, so I seek out inspiration. I don't have to go very far.
The art museum on the mall has a bag check. They don't let you take in huge, unruly backpacks. You might bash into a Matise or something, so they let me stow my pack in the coat room. I pretty much just leave it all day and have a grand time. The security officer that checks me was married to a woman from Albuquerque. Where I'm from doesn't impress anyone here. Everyone either knows someone or IS someone from New Mexico. Most of them ask about green chili. Everyone claims to love it when it is not right in front of them.
I go to see the modern art today. I see the aforementioned Matise. I see several Picasso pieces and I think of how funny he is. No one ever called him 'the asshole'. He wasn't a particularly good artist. His early stuff is kind of awkward and bubbly. But then, he had an idea that no one had ever had before. He looked at things, and expressed what he saw, in a way that defied explanation but was somehow right. That is the genius of Picasso and I love him for it.
Then I come to the Pollock. I've written about him before, after I saw some of his wife's work when I was in Denver. I compared her work, which I didn't quite connect with, to his. For some reason, I have always just felt like I got it. Now, standing in front of one of them, imagining that I am looking at this canvas from the same distance that the artist once did, I realize how much he actually does speak to me.
There is nothing like looking at it in person. It is grand and beautiful. The dripped paint swirls until it turns into a portal into Pollock's mind that defies time and space and language and words. He was a drunk. He was tortured. He didn't quite know what he was doing and it made him furious. He was an asshole. But he tried. He gave it his all, even at the expense of his own happiness, and he came out the other side with something that made the world better. In that, he succeeded I suppose.
Of course, when I am looking at the piece, I am alone in the room. Occasionally someone wanders through and gives it a glance. Like Ford's Theater, there is not a lot of fuss being made over this particular gallery room on this particular day, and I don't quite understand why. Maybe I feel bad for Pollock because I identify with him. All I want to do is make a contribution, to help out. I don't quite know how to do it either. Are these writings worth anything? Are my actions making a difference to anyone but me in any way? Is any of this enough? Most of the time it doesn't feel like it.
I wish someone would just say, 'if you want to contribute, here's what you do.' Then I could just do it, I have the opportunity. Instead, I have to figure it out while I act. I've sobered up. I'm not quite the asshole that I once was. I am trying to find happiness and make a contribution. I stay out of other people's business, I don't make myself a burden to them.
It seems like my path is here, like I am in the right place. Every now and them I get a little clue that tells me I'm doing right. But I can't see very far in front of me. I don't know where this will end for me and I don't understand how any of this can possibly matter. I suppose that all of this just makes it possible for me to love my life, every second that I am living it. I am grateful for the opportunity to take each individual step, especially when they include a day like today. I am in the nation's capital, letting my appreciation for this world grow by feeling the revolution building in the air, understanding how we got here, and seeing firsthand the little achievements that can add up to positive change in our world. Lincoln and Picasso and Pollock have given me a good, firm schooling in that today.
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