$.04
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
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
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