I can’t not say it—I am still buzzing and fizzing and bubbling over from a shimmering gift of an evening spent with my friend a few days ago, in a city that has always been exotic for me, although just down the road. My hometown of Baltimore admittedly has its quirky charm, portrayed so well by native son John Waters, along with its mix of solid, working class roots and almost paradoxical Southern genteelness. But whenever I make the forty or so minute trip south to Washington, DC, I revel in the differentness of the place. I love the grand, monumental government buildings that are packed together and that yet so gracefully coexist. I love the expansive and thoughtfully designed parks and malls and curving, manicured roads that showcase them. I love the public restrooms that are beautiful and—amazingly—clean. I love the townhomes (rowhouses in Baltimore-speak) with the protruding fronts that allow for more windows and the other flourishes on them that are different from the ones back home. I love the way the city is laid out not in a predictable (and vastly more navigable) grid like my hometown is, but in a series of spokes radiating out from the center. I love the graceful cast-iron post mounted stoplights. But probably most of all, I love the wild ethnic stew of people mixing and swirling around and all that comes with it—every shade of skin, the music of other languages and accents, the bounty of every kind of food imaginable, the street vendors selling things from around the world. And underlying it all is the realization that it is the capitol of the most powerful nation in the world—the one, with all of its very visible problems, so many in the world still look and even come to with hope in their hearts. Washington has a glow and a vibe that speak to me, and I simply love it.

Every once in a while the planets align and all seems to come together to make for a night that I know I will remember years from now. It’s hard to say what exactly the ingredients are, and even if you listed what you thought they were, I’m not sure you could simply just order up such an evening. The air was warm enough for girls to wear their pretty, skin-baring summer clothes. The moon looked like an orange slice on a cocktail glass. We were able to eat our dinner on a lovely terrace with a perfect view for watching the sea of humanity flow past. A street musician came by and stood near our table and played his portable keyboard—Ribbon in the Sky by Stevie Wonder, I believe—but the restaurant was piping its own music in as well and I recognized the faint strains of one of my favorite songs in the whole world—a song that synchronistically mirrored the euphoric happiness I was feeling to be part of the mix in that particular moment in time on that particular spot on the planet. After dinner we walked a few blocks and climbed some dark stairs to a darker bar and danced until we got tired of the beat and moved on and discovered a whole new world on 18th Street and another dance floor—beautiful, with black and white tiles and twinkly red and blue lights--which we had completely to ourselves until some woman who just wanted to dance joined us.

We finally left there after a while, knowing we had a long walk back to the car, and stopped in a shop whose wares spilled out onto the sidewalk where we made our way carefully through narrow aisles of rugs and bowls and masks and jewelry and amazing things that someone far away had made, having no idea that they would contribute to the magic of my beautiful evening. Then we shared an enormous piece of sloppy pizza while sitting on a bench outside some little joint, listening to a woman sing the blues to her recorded background music. Finally, we got up, put some money in her tip jar to thank her for providing part of the soundtrack to our adventure, and walked the rest of the way back to the parking garage. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to leave, as others on the street seemed to be just starting out, with the air still warm and the neon still glowing and the doors and windows of the bars and restaurants still beckoning. But on the way home, heading north, the orange slice moon followed us.