On Moving and Staying Still
Reflections on 2013
2013 felt like a year of staying in place. This was the first year that I can remember in which I did not move to a different apartment, to a different city, or at the very least to a new job. I even finally traded in my Kansas driver’s license for DC to cement the deal.
Despite staying in place, it was also a year of movement — more so than any other year. A year of seeing how much life and activity I could fit into a single year without making any major life changes.
I went to Prague, Budapest, Montreal, Reykjavik, made several visits to Brooklyn, and one trip to the suburbs of Kansas City.
Being in a different place is so wonderful and disorienting and exciting. I walked as far as my feet could take me, exploring local grocery stores and coffee shops, deciphering menus and directions in languages I didn't understand, and meeting people in atypical ways.
I spent so many hours on trains.
On the train from Prague to Budapest I drank half a bottle of Becherovka, talked about life plans and hopes with my friend Kate, and worked on my submission for Sorry & Thanks — a zine for a mail art club I was in.
On the train from Montreal to New York City I had an extremely short-lived train romance which involved ordering the same food items at the Amtrak Cafe, talking about work and the books we were reading, kissing once, and me refusing an invitation to see him further.
On other trips to New York I attended a tech conference, vistited several photobooths, walked across the Williamsburg Bridge in the snow, and stayed up until five in the morning trying to see a meteor shower but missing it because of clouds and the most wonderful conversations about life with old and new friends.
My bicycle was there for me every day.
On inauguration weekend I rode in my first alleycat race. The next morning I woke up and walked to my coworker friend’s house, stopped for morning coffee at my boss’s house on the way to work, and then got to experience the inauguration from the rooftop of my office two blocks from the Capitol.
The rest of the year brought more alleycats, several brewery bicycle tours (including one that I organized for my birthday!), group rides, and stopping at bike lanes to talk with friends. The night of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association holiday party, I ran in to a friend in a bike lane on the way there and chatted for several blocks, and after on the way home another bicyclist gave me a doughnut (Krispy Kreme! chocolate glazed!) at a stoplight.
Biking to me is freedom.
And sailing.
I gained confidence sailing Flying Scots after learning how to sail them in 2012, and took an intermediate sailing class to learn to sail FJs. Though I still consider myself a lackluster sailer and there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement there, I can do it.
Through this, I told my friend Ashley that we were sailors and we went sailing weekly. Ashley told me that we were also hikers, and I bought some hiking pants and boots. We hiked in Shenandoah, swam under waterfalls, and did yoga at sunrise.
The next time we went hiking was during the 2013 government shutdown, a bizarre and uneasy time of filling time without knowing when that freedom would end.
And I took in a lot of stories.
Through the dense stretches of The Good Wife, Grimm, House of Cards, Dr. Who, and a number of other series that my Netflix served up, I managed to also leave the house for a few things.
I took advantage of DC’s arts scene by seeing an obscene amount of independent theatre at Woolly Mammoth, Fringe Festival, and Studio Theatre. Woolly Mammoth’s Chekhov-inspired Stupid Fucking Bird was the best play I have seen in my life.
DC Shorts, a short film festival in DC, was also important to me this year. I worked as a screener in April, slogging through some terrible short film submissions to find the gems among them. I worked as a venue manager in September, helping coordinate volunteers and making sure the festival went smoothly. I also watched a screening of some of the best 2013 films on the last day of the festival, which were both devastating and inspiring.
Maintaining the small things that matter.
There were so many constants throughout the year, patterns and habits that I formed and rely on.
My friends, the daily and weekly phone calls and texts with my parents, ordering ridiculous Starbucks drinks using intermittent rewards with a friend, finding fascinating articles to include in daily news roundups at work, starting the year joking about trivia at a bar with a boy and finishing the year winning at trivia with a large group of friends at the same bar.
Amid the rest of the year’s movement, Sunday was the anchor of each week. Every Sunday I woke up at home, made coffee and breakfast, read the New York Times, and went to my mid-morning yoga class. No matter what else was going on, that was there for me.
When I think about 2013, I perceive it to be a non-monumental year. Not bad, but certainly not significant. But sitting down to look back at the full 365 days, wow: I did a lot.
