Capitol Disillusionment

I have to confess that sometimes living on Capitol Hill makes me very self-righteously sick to my stomach. I just took a short jaunt over to Eastern Market, our nineteenth-century style community marketplace, a trip that usually lifts my spirits. But today I am waxing cynical, and the sight of the market stalls being flooded with wealthy yuppie Hill-staffer wives and their souped-up perambulators burgeoning with spoiled children turned me green. Ideally, the sight of beautiful women raising their children on fresh air and organic vegetables should thrill me, giving me hope for a future abundant with such images of health and social responsibility. But the reality is that these families and their whole foods-dependent, high-spending-threshold lifestyles have pushed to the outskirts of this neighborhood most of its long-standing, but poorer, residents. It's all just so damn quaint--and a little too perfect--that these shiny-faced people can gallivant about so neighborly and cheerily. All the while I can't help but shudder at the fact that they are parading their ecologically-responsible, politically-correct lives over the lost property and dreams of their less-fortunate neighbors.

As if I don't want to live an ecologically-responsible, socially-just life. As if I don't want to have the power to influence the state of my children's school or the level of lead in the city water. As if I wouldn't love to live on a pesticide-hormone-insecticide-free diet. As if I have any right to criticize people who look like me, who have backgrounds and stories similar to mine, and whose level of success and wealth I could very well achieve some day. But I'm glad to be moving from Capitol Hill. I'm glad to be moving to another part of the city--a little rougher around the edges--where I can't pretend that quaint open-air markets, arms full of fresh fruits and vegetables, and wealth and comfort are the standard for most of the world's citizens. Where I can't pretend that my own complacency should be a normal state of being, and where I hope I won't be able to ignore the lost dreams around me.

To celebrate our three-week anniversary we decided to . . . start a blog! Some will be utterly amazed at Ryan's surrender to things with "e-" preceding them. He formally declares: "e-excitement!" This leads Kendra to ponder whether "becoming as one" refers to all areas of life (especially the electronic realm, where her best intentions of formulating a serious, intelligent blog may be compromised by her newly-gained husband's questionable sense of humor).

Electronic bickering aside, we welcome you to join us on our great "leap out of the nest"; lamenting with us as we hurtle toward the ground, rejoicing with us as we spread our wings, accompanying us as we ride God's benevolent winds to new destinations.