The sky is blue. There is no snow. This Christmas was so different from the last four we've spent in Cleveland, OH. Winter was something you put on and carried for months in Ohio. A thick coat. It was, as one of my friends once put it, an escape from the pressures of the outdoors. It was a chance to sit still, or bury oneself beneath bundles of clothes and face the bite of cold.
Last night, we went to see the tree that is in front of the Capitol. And for the first time this winter, we felt cold. The wind was one of those that bites through your clothes. The tree was beautiful. Blue, purple and gold lights and behind the tree that majestic stretch of the mall from the reflecting pool, to the Washington Monument (or as my son calls it, "the pencil"). There is something about D.C. in the dark. All of that granite and history weighing on you as you look at it.
