so much has been given to us, in the Capitol

One of our happiest times during this entire week was last night just after dusk, when we finished a day of walking up, down and around DC with a long walk on the mall. It was spectacular, with the clear white lights illuminating the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, with a deep blue night sky and stars above. To the side was the White House. As there have been all this week, there were lots of little vignettes going on all around us, lots of parents showing off the mall to their children, a few foreign visitors, a few VIP tourists being cycled around in one of the bicycle tuk-tuks, a group of about six exuberant youngish black visitors doing fun poses in front of the Monument, faces gazing out towards the white house. The evening was absolutely spectacular. Once again, Washington DC made me tear up. Just from walking around.

I feel completely like a born again patriot this week! the wonder today was the amazing riches of artwork and science and ancient relics, in all the museums, that collectors gave, free and clear, to their country, to display! Sure they were rich privileged folks in many cases - the Mellons, the Randolphs, the whoevers -- but to give any one of these gorgeous paintings, by Monet and Cassatt and Degas and van Gogh and Renoir and Rubens and Raphael and Miro and O'Keefe and Rembrandt and all of them, that they could have kept and looked at privately with their wealthy friends, or sold for hard cash -- that was really grand and generous. And there are so many. The riches of the National Gallery are amazing.

Today on our plane home, we met a couple who shared a story: yesterday they met a tourist, a dad with his kids, walking around, and he told them, he felt bad because he wanted to show them more, but after the cost of lodgings and meals, he did not have enough money - - and they had the pleasure of filling him in, that everything in the museums in the mall can be enjoyed free and clear, it's all there for us Americans and our guests to visit and enjoy. There are so many choices also. We had a great time in the Smithsonian Natural history museum, looking at meteors and moon rocks and dinosaurs and egyptian sarcophagi. one of my favorites is the minerals collections and in there, is a collection of spectacular crystals and gems from the mines in Bisbee, Arizona... because some rich miner had a collection that he willed to the Smithsonian so we could all enjoy it.

Throughout the past 230 years, people have felt huge gratitude and respect for this country, and have chosen to give back. Not just material goods, but experiences and knowledge. In Jefferson's house there were all these wonders of the west, giant elk antlers and tipis and mastodon bones, that he purposefully set up in his antechamber, so that while his guests waited to talk to him, they could get a little free education. Similarly today, the free education provided in Washington, is a joy. The only sad thing, to me, was that the national gallery of art was easy to get around, hardly crowded at all, and the gallery in the Smithsonian that holds the Hope Diamond was absolutely packed. We need to do a better job of teaching all our kids about what's really important in life, and why. My bias, I know, but I got so much from my parents teaching me, and I am so glad I have seen these great works.

We did go to the Phillips Gallery, which is private. But this had been a favorite of mine 30 years ago, and it was great, to see paintings which had become so familiar to me when I was 19. What was different was me. Age and experience cause me to see very different things in the paintings than I had perceived at age 19. Some, like Georges Braque, I think I had really liked because I was supposed to; now I could enjoy them, but feel a lot more discriminatory. I really enjoyed feeling new reactions, while looking at the great painting there, The Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir -- because now I see that it's still just as beautiful but now it's no longer just a great painting, I see how different it looks to me now, everyone in it is way younger tan I am, I see such youth, all these glowing tipsy young muscular men and flirting girls, and it's fun to see who is enamoured of who and who is self absorbed, all these facial expressions I probably missed the meaning of, and still all in the warm hum of a summer day with plenty of wine. Great art but also, what fun they were all having. (this painting is so easy to find, search Google images for Renoir boating party)

Anyway seeing the effect of all these people giving - the rich giving their art, the explorers giving their maps, the miner giving his crystals and we the taxpayers giving the monuments, including the great Washington Monument whose color changes halfway up showing how it had had to be abandoned for the civil war -- these were really great in their effect on me. makes me so happy to participate in this country, with my taxes and in other ways. we owe a lot to our country's creators and to individuals who we will never know who have sustained and enriched it.