National Mall – Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane
Of all the cities in the east, Washington remains my favorite. It’s place at the emotional heart of our republic, the center of the Union that my lifelong hero President Lincoln fought to preserve, makes me yet another Mr. Smith every time I return to the capital. This week I made such a trip back to some of my favorite museums, some powerful monuments, and some good weather after months of cold and snow in Upstate New York. I decided that I wanted to make my trip a bit of an adventure and chose to drive down from Binghamton rather than fly, an easier option. This led me to an occasionally tense journey down Interstates 81 and 83 through Pennsylvania and Maryland to the BWI Amtrak station where I decided to leave my car for the weekend, figuring it’d be better to not try to drive and park in the District if possible.
Arriving in D.C. on the Acela, currently this country’s fastest passenger train, something the train nerd in me specifically chose to do, I had a similar arrival to Jimmy Stewart’s Mr. Smith at Union Station, its high vaulted ceilings designed by Chicago’s own Daniel Burnham over a century ago. Unlike Smith I didn’t see the capitol dome from the station, instead looking downward trying to find the nearest metro station to get to my hotel.
Seeing the monuments at night is always a special treat. As elegant as they are in the daytime, and some like the Vietnam Memorial are better seen under the Sun, there’s a special artistry in seeing the work of sculptors and architects illuminated with floodlights. That’s how I saw the Washington, Lincoln, and MLK Memorials, lit up solemnly. Mr. Lincoln and Dr. King looked as though they were great titans of antiquity in the glow of their memorials’ lights.
At this time in our history, Lincoln’s struggle to save the Union and end slavery in this country once and for all seems all the more present. In the week since my last post (episode for those listening) the Russian military has invaded Ukraine. I alluded to those threats last week, but now threats have become a living nightmare for the Ukrainian people and a great storm cloud over the rest of Europe that threatens to engulf all of humanity. How do we embrace the true and righteous words of Mr. Lincoln to do the right thing and feel no evil towards others, even those like President Putin who have so brutally attacked their neighbors? I don’t have an answer to that question yet, nor am I certain that I ever will. But today’s feast, Ash Wednesday for us Catholics, fits well into this narrative as an annual reminder “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
I spent a good deal of time on Saturday in several of the Smithsonian museums, returning to the Natural History Museum that I visited in July to double check a label for a sloth for my dissertation, and revisiting an old favorite in the Asian Art Museum. I also visited the American History Museum for the first time in over a decade and enjoyed it quite a bit more. The previous time in 2011 it seemed to be sparse in actual history, yet this time I could notice the nuance in the stories it told in the objects on display in what little space it had available.
The most insightful museum visit though was to the Futures exhibit currently housed in the Arts and Industries Building on the south side of the Mall next to the Smithsonian Castle. This exhibit, which asks visitors to imagine how our future could be a sign of human life improving offered a much needed antidote to the troubles of the world. There were examples of carbon-neutral and renewable building techniques and materials, electric cars, air taxis, and hyperloops. There was a new model of a space suit that was far less bulky than those used by astronauts today and a model of Light Sail 2, a spacecraft sent into orbit by the Planetary Society, a space advocacy organization of which I’m proud to say that I’m a member. There is no one future but many for us to choose from. It’s up to us to determine how we want our future to be written, to be designed, to be imagined.
The National Mall is the emotional heart of this country. It speaks to me of generations of memory, passion, and possibility. On this trip as well though I could imagine myself there in the future, introducing the next generation and later generations to come to that heart, to the ideals and hopes and dreams of this republic. Now at the end of my 20s, my visits to the capital mean something different to me than they did in the last decade. They represent my own future, its infinite possibilities, and how I might be able to do my part, however small it may be, to influence and improve upon our experiences.
Wednesday Blog by Seán Thomas Kane 