jumpingfish

A family stood in front of a centuries-old illustration of Rustam and Rakhsh.

The grandmother with a scarf on her head peered at the picture with a magnifying glass. The father was reading the Persian script in a hushed voice. The grandfather embellished and explained the story, speaking in Farsi. The granddaughter listened from her father’s arms.

“What did he say?” he asked her father after her grandfather stopped speaking.

He translated what the grandfather was saying. He told her about Rustam, son of Zal. He told her about his strength and bravery. And he told her about his devoted horse, Rakhsh and how he was defending Rustam from the lion, grabbing it by the next and dragging it thru the underbrush while the hero slept.

The lights in the room were dim, and the colors on the framed images leapt off the wall.

Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery. This was the only thing that I really, really wanted to do when we came to DC. This was the last day of the exhibit. We made it.

1. A parking place

Our original plan was to forego a car, but the last minute plan to have dinner with Ben in Chinatown late on Saturday evening made our plan of using buses and Metro untenable, at least for that day.

So we had a rental car on the first two days of our trip, an unexpected luxury. And this turned out to be a godsend on the first day, since we were dodging severe thunderstorms all afternoon and evening. And on the second day, it gave us an easy way to commute into DC.

As it turned out, we had a place to park. Melissa and Carlyle, friends from years ago, graciously offered to share their driveway. And living as they do a short walk from a metro stop, getting into the city was a breeze (except of course we had to navigate our way in from suburban Virginia: a pleasure we had hoped to avoid by using mass transit).

Still, a free parking place mere blocks from the metro? Oh my. Thank you indeed, Melissa and Carlyle.

We parked in front of their house, knocked on the door to let them know we were there, walked to the Pentagon City metro and rode into the city.

2. Olfactory memories

Down underground, for a brief moment it was 1981.

I mean really. That was 30 years ago almost to the day. And it’s not like I haven’t been back to DC since. But something characteristic in the smell of the Metro stations took me back.

There I was feeling as if I was catching the metro with my summer roommate John and 13 other engineering students as we worked our way around town as summer interns in the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering. I had flashbacks of standing in the metro at rush hour as all the suits came and went, of savoring the Washington Post every day, of learning about The MacNeil-Lehrer Report and Washington Week in Review, of throwing frisbees on the mall where years later the Vietnam Memorial would be built, of looking out the window of our dorm room at GWU onto the street below, of the hot mugginess of Foggy Bottom, of evening walks to Georgetown, of a weekend road trip to Massachusetts and trying to find a parking place in Central Park just to say we were there as we passed thru.

I mean really. All that came washing back from 30 years ago. It came in a flash as we got off at the Smithsonian metro stop, and then it was gone.

And then we started our little vacation in DC.

I saw a man yesterday running with his dog. He wasn’t very fast, and his little black dog was stopping at various trees and shrubs to investigate. And I watched as a loose dog came trotting out of nowhere from across the street and started to pick a fight with the man’s little black dog.

I don’t recall which dog made the first move, but in a moment they were snarling ferociously and at each other. The man tried in vain to say between them, pulling on his little dog’s leash, trying to yank him out of the action. And then the little dog slipped out of his collar and both dogs were loose.

The second dog was bigger and had the advantage, but the first one was wiggly and turned on a dime. The big dog tried to bite the little one on the back, but the little one tucked and turned and ran. He ran out into the street where the traffic had slowed because of the commotion and now came to a halt as the two dogs went at it right on the dotted line.

The man saw that the cars had stopped and ran into the street, trying to get between the fighting dogs and whip the bigger one with his leash. And then the little black dog, deciding that there was no profit in all this, made an escape, dashing for the sidewalk, leaving the big dog in the middle of the road staring at the man.

The big dog began to snarl. The man stepped toward the dog and yelled, “Go,” pointing back to the house across the street.

“GO!” he yelled even louder pointing again back to the house.

The big dog looked at the man. The snarl was gone from its face.

“GOOO!” the man yelled again, this time at the top of his lungs, sounding like some wild man of the mountains.

The big dog turned and walked away.

“Thank you,” the man said to a woman in an SUV who was at the front of the line of cars stopped in the street.

He scooped up his little black dog and walked off in the direction the two of them had been running, whispering something in the little black dog’s ear.

1. What Does He Think He’s Doing?

We were eating breakfast tacos at Torchy’s, sitting outside in the sun watching people come and go, watching the traffic, watching the joggers running on the Arbor Trails trail.

I was really enjoying my bacon, egg & cheese, captivated by the taste, by the protein coursing thru my veins lifting the veil of grim that floats about me in the morning.

My brother pointed at a guy running by.

“What does he think he’s doing?” he said. “He’s not jogging. You could walk faster than that.”

I looked up and thought that I couldn’t walk faster than that, or at least wouldn’t. And I thought that at least that guy’s out there trying.

2. You’ve Been Running All This Time?

That was a little more than a year ago. Soon after my brother’s visit, I started walking short distances and then walking longer distances and then jogging, although truth be told my jogging is more like trudging, but … whatever. I am finally out there again.

In the afternoons, I’ll push the keyboard back and put on my running gear and take the dog out for a jog around Arbor Trails. Today I did 3.5 miles.  And as if the jogging isn’t slow enough, the dog and I make a point to take regular walking breaks.

These walking breaks are, frankly, key. Guinness likes the chance to do some sniffing around. I like the chance to … stop jogging. It’s a little reward for getting out there.

So on our way home today, down the final stretch in fact, up the slight grade that seems to be such a drag at the end of the run, I passed a guy whom I had passed on the way out. He looked at me and smiled.

“You’ve been running all this time?” he asked. “I saw you going out, and that was a long time ago.”

He was all impressed by how long I’d been at it. He didn’t know anything about the walking breaks. Or about the trudging. And let’s just say that I let it stay that way.

It was Friday. It was evening. The week was done.

We were sitting outside on the patio at Austin Java sipping iced teas. The dog was alternately drinking from a bowl of water, sitting on the wall behind us watching the traffic on Barton Springs Boulevard, and contentedly lying in my lap.

A group of guys was sitting at a table not far from us, pointing across the street at Flipnotics and watching the cars as they drove by. A college girl was working on a research paper just across from us. Her boyfriend had given up and left a few minutes after we arrived, but she was still at it, reading papers on her laptop, sipping her tea, listening to music on her iPod. A grandmother who had just arrived was desperately trying to scrub clean the patio chairs and table before her grandson sat down.

Our food arrived.

Trudy had pasta. I had a chicken satay sandwich and mashers. The iced tea tasted really, really good. And then Gladys Knight and the Pips came on singing Midnight Train. I took a bite of my sandwich and looked over at Trudy with tears in my eyes.

She smiled.

You know, the news is so bad today. The horrible stories kicked off the front page of BBC are superseded by ones even worse. I can’t bring myself to talk about them. But…

Friday. Iced tea. Cool breeze. Good food. A content dog. And Gladys Knight.

A small, welcome miracle.