It’s sort of starting to feel like Spring here in Boston.

Spring always makes me miss Washington, DC, though. I left the District in June of 2010 after almost ten years there and days like today – weather in the fifties, going to a friend’s house to watch the baseball game and celebrate my boyfriend’s 31st birthday – make me miss it there way too badly. So today, I dove into my archives (back in the day my first public blog – which was at one time or another quoted by The Washington Post & Wonkette among other publications – was called The View from Dupont, and I loved it with all of my blog-loving heart) and found a beautiful piece about one of my favorite ways to spend time in DC and it just spoke to me. Here you are, DC in prose, speaking to me from all the way back in 2006.

Saturday I’m going to go spend the day at Arlington National Cemetery. I love it there, but I’ve only been a couple of times, but Summer’s the best time to go. It’s so hot and so miserable most people stay away, it’s silent anywhere you go. So this weekend, I’m going to take Saturday all for myself and disappear for a day. I have places to go.

Visiting Bobby‘s grave. Growing up, even though I was Republican as a kid, I wanted to be a politician like him. Someone who was able to look beyond personal politics and do what was truly good for the rest of the community, or country, or world. I wanted to be just as smart, just as good with words, just as charming and successful as the most attractive Kennedy. So I always stop by to say hello; to let him know that he did make an impact, even if it wasn’t the impact he’d hoped for as he ran for President.

I’ll stop by to pay respects at the Eternal Flame. As a lover of pink, not to mention someone who had to do the whole “being on his arm” thing for a while, I have huge amounts of respect for Jackie O. And the Boston in me has to stop and say a word for JFK. From there I wander for a while, enjoying the silence, reading as many names as I can. I try to remind myself when I’m there that they aren’t just stones, but names. I find my way to the Tomb of the Unknowns and that’s where I sit for a while. Then I’ll wander some more, looking for specific spots that I’ve loved, staying towards the front of the area so as there’s no chance at all I’ll come across Iwo Jima. I know, it seems like something obvious enough that you wouldn’t just happen upon it, but I’ve been known to get far more lost than that and something about the monument unsettles me, so I want to be cautious.

Sent from my Dell Desktop‘s post about leaving DC really got to me this week, and thinking of that is one of the reasons I’m making an effort to get the most out of this summer: “The lasts rarely make themselves known. It usually isn’t until long after the fact that you realize that what happened will never happen again. Last moments: kisses, dances, conversations, good-byes. They slip by unnoticed until it’s too late to go back and remember.”

I find it surprising and a little bit said that 4 years before I left DC, I already seemed to know how hard it would be. From the moment I moved there when I was 18, I felt at home. DC was a part of a me and I was a part of it – fully at home and comfortable. I had my heart breaks and made many mistakes, but the city itself never did me wrong, and I think I knew that the whole time I lived there, not just after I’d left. It’s archive posts like this one that make think back fondly and try to remember those lasts, and try to savor every day now even more. So let’s enjoy our measly Spring 50-degrees and an opening day at Fenway which we don’t have tickets to. Let’s celebrate The Boyfriend’s birthday by appreciating our friends and our favorite cheap bars and seeing the same things with new eyes.