Soucies, gone.

The Soucies who were here are gone. It was really a lot of fun.

Easter morning, we had an epic, fourteen course neo-Latino dim sum brunch at Cafe Atlantico and visited the sculpture garden behind the National Gallery. Next day, we loaded up the car and headed to Leesburg, VA for some serious outlet shopping and bad Burger King. Damn, my brother can shop!

The rest of the time, we stayed near our neighbourhood: strolling around crumbly, old Georgetown to stare at the architecture and stopping at Tackle Box for half price fish tacos, hush puppies, and cold iced tea; then walking up to Dupont Circle to sit by the fountain, eat lunch at BGR The Burger Joint, flip through design books at Kramerbooks (where we also saw Joe Clark!), and poke through a crowded wine store. Of course, I also had to take Jeremiah up to U Street, where gentrification is starting to ramp up, leaving room enough for Cork's gorgeous market and tasting room, hip pizza parlours, antique shops and beautiful little boutiques stocked to the artfully exposed rafters with local soy candles, skinny denim neckties and fun tools for feeding babies and kids.

Speaking of babies, Elspeth (AKA 'Fancy') kept us home some of the time, so we laid into snacks from Trader Joe's, watched bad comedies and good documentaries on Netflicks, talked until late, ate noodle bowls, and Skyped with Sarah.

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

Soucies, here.

3 Soucies/2 Korats/1 Binks

Starting Saturday, two of these people are visiting for a week. To do what? Sunday Brunch at Cafe Atlantico with all of us, plus Sarah Minor, Easter egg colouring with my friend Barbara and her children and grandson, coffee at Dean & Deluca, outdoor cooking demos, Foggy Bottom Farmer's Market, cooking on our cool gas stove, a road trip to Baltimore, sitting in cafes, going to Amsterdam Falafel, playing blocks, pushing the stroller.

This will be Elspeth's inaugural induction into the Soucie sibling bonding process. Lucky girl!

IN the computer?

Adam likes to make fun of my status (or non-status) as what Malcolm Gladwell called a 'laggard' in The Tipping Point. (When imagining my interest in adopting new technologies, think about the hilarious scene in Zoolander when Matilda informs Hansel that the files are IN the computer).

But I finally figured out how to get the photos off my iPhone and onto my Mac, so now I can show you the photos I've been snapping around town. 

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Brain in a Vat

Most of you have a vague idea that I once trained to be a natural nutritionist...or that I used to do yoga three times a week, meditate, cook dinner from scratch, do crafts, use the public library.

But the fun times had to end, I believed. Grown-ups need to make money, build a safety net, start a trust fund.

So, I took a large scholarship to do a degree I knew I didn't want, to help land a job in an industry I no longer believed in. I got trained to do quasi-scientific research and write long documents that are hard to read. Perfect skills for a future public servant! ;-) So, I took a position for the federal government, where there is less pressure to produce, but the writing is equally obtuse.

I often used to feel just like a brain in a vat. Typing, tapping, thinking, thinking.

But lately, I've have the space to stretch, read, eat a mostly vegetarian diet, hike, bike, tell stories, take pictures. Less pressure on myself to get published, get a promotion, have a baby, build a house. It feels good to get back to the basics.

Portrait of my psychotherapist in her office at 7:59 am.

Round and Round

Spring. After Winter.

An American Wife

 

Uh huh, yes, I am watching Army Wives. On Netflicks. While unemployed. Guilty as charged. 

Poparazzi

Yesterday, I took the extrovert out for the morning. We met up with Julia and Steve for a vegan brunch at Sticky Fingers Bakery. As with most vegan food, it was interesting, but not amazing. Afterward, we all walked over to Popapalooza, a spring fling for one of the local food trucks. Amongst the four of us, we ordered two coffee & creams, one strawberry & cream and a Thai coconut curry.

It was really too cold for popsicles though, so we wound up going to Julia and Steve's to meet Nora, their sweet kitty cat. We had brought her some toys from our cats' large store of personal belongings and she humored us by chasing them around.

It was fun. Kinda felt normal. Which is kinda good.

Maoz

Last time I ate at a Maoz was August 22, 2005. I turned 25 that day in London, took a two-hour flight to Barcelona and then a short cab side to a busy pedestrian courtyard, the driver going straight into the middle of the crowd and dropping us off with a vague gesture in the direction of the street we had mentioned. We eventually found our little apartment and then went in search of cheap birthday food. We quickly found Maoz, a stylish Dutch falafel chain with all-you-can-stuff vegetarian toppings.

Turns out there is a Maoz a couple blocks from our condo and the toppings are as good as we remembered them.

Cut Off

I think I had this idea, when I moved here, that I would ideally cut myself off from most of my old life and totally immerse myself in American culture and a new existence. I guess I was thinking that I moved here for a new experience, so I should take advantage and not rely on the old comforts of home. I also had it in my head that living in the US is not that much different from Canada, it's not India, so I shouldn't really be missing much.

I'm pretty sure this is a form of torture used in actual prison camps. Leave it to me!

So yesterday, I made the ultimate comfort food, Vietnamese noodle bowls, which Adam and I used to make once a month or so in Ottawa. They're a lot of work, but the ritual is incredibly familiar, slicing the cucumbers into delicate sticks, frying little slabs of tofu, flipping the omelet and slicing it into long, thin strips, putting it all out on the counter: the chopped herbs, basil and mint, the jar of hot sauce, and two bowls of steaming vermicelli.

While I was doing it, I listened to CBC Radio comedy show about what makes Canadians Canadian. Not at all funny. But nice to hear the familiar sounds of the station: the opening music, the droning host. When I was a kid, my father had CBC on every morning for the snow report; in the afternoon, the talk programs prattled on, keeping him company as he tinkered in his workshop, Postum going cold in the cup.

Familiar tastes and sounds and movements aren't simply comforts. They don't just help us identify with a country or a city or another time. They help us identify with ourselves.

Okay, I get it.

Existential Migrants

"It's a thin line between a groove and a rut," Adam mused, as we walk along the narrow sidewalks on Georgetown's historic M Street.

"Exactly," I agreed. "That's why we felt like we had to move. Because the deeper a groove gets, the less you are challenged, the less you grow and the further you move away from creativity."

I've been reading a lot about home and belonging these days, as I work (frantically? earnestly?) on the first complete draft of my thesis.

Last week, I came across the work of Greg Madison, a Canadian psychologist who defected to England. There, he interviewed hundreds of voluntary migrants--people who moved to London by choice--to find out what common threads existed among them.

What he figured out is that they are all engaging in ‘existential migration,’ which he describes as a chosen attempt to express something fundamental about existence by leaving one’s homeland and becoming a foreigner.

The concept resonates with Adam and I deeply.

We couldn't stay in New Brunswick. And eventually, we started to realize that we couldn't stay in Ottawa, at least not continuously. We both felt the need to relocate in search of a space in which 'the self could unfold more freely' (Madison's words).

Indeed, strangeness is inspiring. My friend Christina tells me this all the time. She and her boyfriend got married a few years ago, so they could move to the US together, where Tyler had a nursing job lined up. Their goal? The wide, blue Pacific Ocean. Surfing, in particular. So, down they went. Down, deep through the United States, in a U-Haul with their little dog and all their belongings. The result has been a years-long odyssey through loneliness and connection, adaptation and reflection along miles of sand and salty water.

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So, here we are. In an unfamiliar place, uncomfortable with our now imperfect lives, yet able to relate to ourselves in a new way.
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It's really nice. But we still miss all of you, of course.

Newseum

Almost all galleries and museums in DC are, as I'm sure I mentioned incessantly before we moved, 100% FREE. This has caused me no end of joy, since I am my parents' daughter and thus, extremely frugal. The Newseum is far from free, however, so I had basically written it off, scoffing about the subject matter and the steep admission fee.

But I traveled down that way the other day to drop off my EI papers at the Embassy and saw that the museum has a show on the last fifty years of sports photography. Naturally, I wanted to take my man because I knew he would love it. So, I dug up two coupons for 25% off admission and we spent an hour or so looking at gorgeous, full-colour photos of Michael Jordan, Carmello Anthony, Babe Ruth, Ali and Magic and debating the importance of sports heros to contemporary males and the popular imagination.

And, it turns out that the Newseum has a lot of other pieces going for it, including sections of the Berlin Wall in an incredibly poignant exhibit. 

It's good. It's worth seeing. Go if you come. We can't wait to see you.

A Grown-Up Thing

A lot of the participants in my thesis research talked about how a big step toward making a home for themselves was gradually acquiring more 'grown-things.' They didn't mean big-ticket items, like a new car or their first house. They meant basic stuff like matching hangers or a couch that cost more than $60 and a case of beer.

Adam and I are always slow on the draw when it comes to growing up. In the traditional ways, anyway.

But here it is. Finally, our first queen mattress to fit the perfect, solid-wood frame we waited years to find. The cats are psyched to have even more space to steal away from us while we sleep.