Transitions

Nearly six weeks after my return to Canada from the U.S., I believe it's time to finally write a concluding post to the portion of my blog dedicated to my experiences in Washington, DC. Because of all the excitement that inevitably both precedes and follows a big transition like this one, this is the first proper concluding post I write about any of my experiences and I'm not doing it because I feel particularly inspired, but rather because I think it's important to properly celebrate my whole experience and also just because it's a nice way to record my initial reflections on the experience after it ended. So here goes nothing.

My last exam was on a Tuesday: Tuesday, May 6th at 8:30 am. Feeling rather pressured to get back to Sackville to begin the summer research project for which I was being funded from May 1st onward, I had initially planned to leave DC on Wednesday around 5 am. I had a train ticket booked to Buffalo and a bus ticket from there to Toronto; however, as my time drew to an end, I realized I was about to leave DC with so much left undone. And so, on a bit of a whim, I checked plane tickets, found a cheap one going directly to Moncton on Saturday, checked to see if I could cancel my plane and bus tickets, and made the switch.

Of all the planning I've done for different trips, that was probably one of the best decisions I've made. Those extra three days were exactly what I needed to properly finish off the year and to be able to leave without having to suffer through any of those "I really with I had..." moments.

Despite a little overlap, I think most trips can be divided into one's relationship with the place and one's relationships with people, and for me, the latter is always most important. Thus, during those last days, I had my last meals in the cafeteria with friends from campus, I went to check out the new apartments of friends staying in DC for the summer, I had a lovely lunch downtown with a good friend from off campus, I said goodbye to everyone at the homeless drop-in centre and left them the stash of grocery bags and pens I had been saving for them all year, I went to a raw oyster bar in Georgetown for happy hour with my roommate (and we had a bottle of wine and nearly three dozen oysters between the two of us!)... In short, I said goodbye; not a frazzled, last-minute "I've just spent the last 39 hours packing and have to get on a plane in 47 minutes but goodbye. I love you! [starting to walk away] I miss you! Keep in touch! [fading away] Gotta RUN!" kind of goodbye, but rather, a wonderful "this is why I'm going to miss you" kind of goodbye.

Nevertheless, there was also the "place" aspect of my experience that was thirsty for a bit of closure. So on top of a healthy amount of time dallying around Georgetown, I also took a day to see the monuments one last time and to visit the National Art Gallery, the Museum of the American Indian, and the Air and Space Museum. It too was just what I needed, like a final exam that proves to you how much you actually learned in a class.

At the National Art Gallery, as usual, the first thing I wanted to see was a few expressionist and impressionist works. As enthralled by them as always, I thought I should really move on and spend some time on the American stuff. That's what I was really there to see, and taking it in - the portraits, the city scenes, the country scenes, the modern stuff (from Rothko's abstract paintings to stacks of Campbell's soup cans) - I think the bottom line for me - the theme that had been drilled into my head over the last year - was that America has its own distinct culture. It's by no means simply a distinct lack of culture as people sometimes claim, but rather a complex combination of history, religion, institutions, language, art, etc. arguably more similar to the cultures out of which more "classic" works stem than their contemporary geographic homologues.

Next, at the Smithsonians, I realized how skillfully I had learned to identify the overriding feature of American cutlure: politics. To give a few examples:

-The first two floors of the Museum of the American Indian were stores (of products made by or related to American Indians) and the most famous (and probably most popular) part of the museum is their cafeteria that serves traditional foods of aboriginals from across the Americas.

-There's a huge wooden Haida(?) sculpture donated by the Canadian government front and centre on your way into the museum.

-Nothing was translated in the Museum of the American Indian while lots was translated into the languages of the most common visitors in the Air and Space Museum (the most popular Smithsonian). The container for donations was also practically overflowing in the Air and Space Museum and nearly empty in the Museum of the American Indian.

-Finally, a large portion of the Air and Space Museum was dedicated to military advancements in aviation throughout history. Two words: biased much? I guess the Cold War is still in too recent history to begin to look at things a little more objectively...

And on that note, I think it's time to put this post to bed with the rest of my reflections on the United States of America. My time in Washington, DC was fabulous (many thanks to the Killam Fellowships program!) and I do love to share my experiences with you, but there's so much more to it than I could ever blog about. So, as I've already said on a few occasions in this blog, next time you think about heading back to the splendid city of Montreal for another long weekend of adventures or next time you think of buying a couple packs of cigarettes every week for year, consider taking a trip to visit our Southern neighbo(u)rs instead. Who knows what you would think of them!