I think of walking as a kind of call and response. By walking you leave yourself open to the many possibilities, the many encounters that could happen. And therefore you leave your own memoranda, and you encounter other memoranda.
Today I walk south towards downtown. The central business district is gray and hard-edged in the best of times. And these are not the best of times.
On this morning, tourists trickle out of hotels. Most are not wearing masks. The luxury shopping mall at the heart of downtown is not busy. A woman carries a small bag with tissue paper spilling out. Perhaps it holds a bracelet that costs eight times my rent. I imagine putting up signs around those shops that read:. Is he asking for directions, or reporting a crime?
Maybe someone has already posted my imagined signs on windows of Louis Vuitton. A red light at H Street. I contemplate the strange old school building at the corner of 10th and H. Brick and boarded-up windows all painted red-brown. I had been told the nondescript shell of a building was a satellite of the nearby FBI headquarters.
I imagine myself being surveilled as the light turns green. The Secret Service headquarters is next door. The old brick building has been for sale by the government for years. I pass the flashing lights of a police SUV parked in front of an apartment building. I keep walking. I walk past the Department of Justice and the security officers at its gates. My reward, my reason for crossing bleak downtown, is to access the National Mall, green open space, the monuments, waterfront and parkland beyond.
