A Safe Place.

As I’ve seen members of my community share their hearts and their stories over the last few days, I’ve been reminded of the power of our parks. Of the significance that a place such as the Lincoln Memorial or Meridian Hill Park can hold.

I wonder, Mr. Vogel, what your favorite park is? The place you go to get away, or to celebrate, or to remind yourself who you are, where everything else falls away? I hope you have a place like that, anyway.

I hope we all do.

For a long time, I didn’t.

My car used to be the closest thing I had to a safe place. Not the house I grew up in, or the place of worship that betrayed me, or even my own body. Instead of reliable strongholds, these places were crime scenes.

Running away to my car was, for several years, all I had. But even long drives get old when you don’t have anywhere to go to, and eventually must return to the same broken places you came from.

In the 83 weeks that have passed since I first pulled my roommate out of bed on a Wednesday morning to make a 30 minute drive from Brookland, the Lincoln Memorial has become a safe place, that for 2 hours every week, I knew was mine.

In the year and a half since that morning, I have marked my weeks by Wednesdays. The Lincoln Memorial has seen me through 3 moves, 4 jobs, 2 therapists, a graduation, an academic leave, a battle with PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and everything in between.

It is, Mr. Vogel, the one safe place I have been able to count on.

I haven’t shown up every Wednesday. I’ve had some good reasons, and some bad excuses. But this, Mr. Vogel, is the magic of NP DC. Regardless of whether or not I #JustShowUp, I know that it is there. I know that from 5:30–7:30, whether or not my alarm goes off, or if I am winning that day’s fight with my demons, the Lincoln Memorial will be there. This place, this park, has become a safe place for me not only to retreat to, but to emerge from, stronger.

Ultimately, I think that might be the greatest gift November Project DC has given me.

I have cried on those steps. I have hugged total strangers on them. I have run the stairs, and I have trudged up them. I have tested my body, and I have learned to feel power over it again, all while the sun rises over us on those steps.

The choice to climb those stairs each Wednesday is mine, and it’s one that I can’t bear to think of losing.

It’s a choice that I hope you’ll make, someday.