Tristeza

Update: No more tristeza! My friend eventually got in touch with me and we met up two nights later. Two bottles of wine and three pounds of Thai food later, our friendship was back on its feet.




I spent a few hours by myself this afternoon, walking around various Smithsonians in Washington, DC. Traveling by myself always makes me reflective in a way that I almost never am, even when I'm alone at home or traveling with someone. I feel kind of dreamy and melancholy; I walk slowly, thoughtfully. I wander into walls.

Around 5:30, after the Museum of the American Indian closed, I decided to walk down (or up?) 7th Street to the Gallery Place Metro Station. The sun was setting, and all the buildings seemed limned with hazy gold, like the "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" interlude in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's the kind of light that makes you ache for a reason to be sentimental, because the sun is asking you to remember that last hour of light from every summer day since you were a kid.

Today, I was feeling down because an old lost friend had stood me up for lunch. I don't know if I would have been more upset if we were still good friends. I guess that somehow I expected a better effort because we had so much time to make up for. And when I walked out onto the National Mall, into a burning beautiful evening, I wanted to cry for the loveliness of it and for my own pathetic self.