A Peace Rose Grows in Truxton Circle

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This is just a quick acknowledgement to the owner of the lime green house between “R” Street, NW and “Q” Street, NW on New Jersey Avenue, NW. After all this time, I have failed to remember the actual number of your home, but you know the one. The grass is wild and hasn’t been cut since summer began.

In all honestly, the house looks like it may be empty, but the owner left one telling legacy: a Peace rose that grows just inside the iron fence between the house and the sidewalk. It’s immediately recognizable to anyone who’s ever seen one – the perfect mix of delicate pink and creamy yellow blossoms that smell of sweet, but not cloying, perfume. Each summer day since I’ve been running in this neighborhood, I’ve taken the time to stop and smell whatever flower might be blooming there.

I know it’s terribly cliché to stop and smell the roses, but I do so because I think it’s part of a larger metaphor. This rose bush is mature and has been around for a very long time. I may be fooling myself, but I like to think it’s been in this same spot since the 1960s. And because it’s a Peace rose, I like to think that the owner of this home planted this bush here for a reason, as a message to the residents of this neighborhood that we should all observe and protect the peace here.

It wasn’t that far from Truxton Circle where Washington burned during the riots that occurred after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in 1968, and I see this flower as the reminder of what terrible things happened in our capital and how we should hope never to revisit those times again.

I’ve never seen anyone come out of this house before, but if someone does live there, I want to thank him for allowing me to smell the roses and for the sentiment that goes with them.

Bryan

"R" is for "Rainbow"

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Okay, so I mentioned in an earlier blog that I would write about the changing make-up of Truxton Circle. Here goes…

It seems Truxton Circle has sent a Bat Signal to those in the gay community who are either tired of Dupont or are more adventurous than the residents of Logan Circle.

I have noticed over my three-year stint up and back on New Jersey Avenue that it’s become repopulated with more white folks. For a while, it was notable that I actually saw a white person in the neighborhood, but these days, I have been dissecting that recognition a bit. Yes, I have seen a young white couple with a couple of kids move in, but what I find more interesting is the fact that gays are forging new ground here.

Who woulda thunk it?

Now, for years, I’ve passed my favorite neighborhood lesbian on my way up New Jersey Avenue. She’s your typical butch girl with a do-it-yourself cropped hairdo and the proud owner of a rather staid-looking brownstone, newly painted white. There’s nothing remarkable about it really. What is notable is that she has placed a folding chair outside her abode in her makeshift “garden” with her own brightly colored personal umbrella attached to the back of the chair and a spray water bottle that sits nicely within reach on the outside stairs to her house. There for a while, she was outside every single time I ran by between the hours of 12:00 PM and 3:00PM. Never once has she ever said a word to me. Instead, she just watches me run past while she gently spritzes herself to tame the DC heat. We’ve seen each other so much in fact that at one point we decided to politely acknowledge each other. No words, just a nod or a wave. Most recently, however, she’s been AWOL, and for more than just a day or two at a time. I had gone for weeks without seeing her; the only evidence that she still lived there was her empty chair and that lonely bottle on the stairs. It surprised myself at just how much it affected me. Well, I finally saw her again today. It’s been months. But did either of us stop to say an actual, “hello.” Of course not.

I did have another encounter that really blew me away though.

One extremely hot weekday a few weeks ago, I had gotten to “R” Street, NW and turned around (it’s my halfway mark). As I started back down on the other side of New Jersey Avenue, I saw a guy crouched down by his iron fence that fronts the sidewalk on which I run. I took note of him at first simply because he was white (I’ll have to start shaking that notion if many others move in.). I took note of the landscaping in front of his home, thinking to myself that it was particularly well done for the neighborhood. As I passed him, he looked up just in time for our eyes to meet. We didn’t say anything, and I moved on, but I couldn’t help shake the idea I knew him. I searched the rolodex of my brain and about two blocks later realized it was my old friend, Rob.

I had to run back to see if he was still there, and sure enough he was.

I said, “Rob?” and he looked up and said, “Bryan?”

Ten years previous, Rob and a friend of ours had come all the way from DC to Oklahoma to witness the wedding of my wife and me. In all honesty, he was initially a friend of my wife’s, but he grew to embrace me as well. Shortly after we were married, my wife and I lost track of he and his boyfriend, Curtis.

In the span of about five minutes, I found out Rob and Curtis were still together (going on 11 years for them) and they had purchased their row house in the neighborhood six months earlier. They’ve painted it lavender with eggplant accents and proudly fly their rainbow flag. By way of reference, it is in the same block as my favorite lesbian’s home.

Since then, I’ve seen two other gay couples move into Truxton Circle. It seems a cliché, but you can tell which homes they live in. They are the ones that are completely renovated or in the process. They each have lovely garden landscaping in the front and most have their own security systems.

I have to say, I’m proud of the co-existence going on in Truxton Circle. Who’d have thought it would be possible? Not me.

Bryan

P.S. You’ll notice I have found a grand total of no change on Friday or today. I guess that’s just the natural order of things considering my other windfalls of previous week.