extended artist's date - Washington DC for the weekend

Yesterday I wrote a little bit about the affect The Artist's Way has had on my life.  One of the recommendations Julia Cameron makes in the book is to take yourself on an artist's date each and every week.  An artist's date is something the kid or the artist in you wants to do.  You get to do it all by yourself, and you get to do what you want to do, and it doesn't have to cost much of anything - you can go to a greenhouse and look at flowers, for example.  Or you can go to the art museum.  The effect it could have is to awaken parts of you which are curious and excited by the world around you.

This past weekend Chris and I went on an extended artist's date, though that wasn't necessarily our intention.  He suggested that we go to Washington, DC, to belatedly celebrate our 6th anniversary.  It was a fantastic idea.  Our anniversary was the 19th, but we were very busy that day throwing a graduation party for Dylan and barely even remembered our own celebration.  It is so important to me to for us to take the time to remember how sacred and wonderful our marriage is.  Going away for the weekend was perfect.

We decided to stay outside of DC in Crystal City then take the metro into the city.  We chose the Marriott there because Arena Theater is in its basement, and we wanted to see a play there Saturday night.  It was a terrific plan.  We checked in at noon Saturday then found a place to eat nearby.  We found the perfect place, Jaleo, where they serve spanish tapas.  I'd never had them before.  The food was expensive, but, oh my gosh!  It was a delight!  We ordered four different tapas and were thrilled by each one.  I'm not really a foodie, but I experienced sheer delight with each bite.  It's amazing what well-prepared food can do for the soul.  We had an endive lettuce leaf with an orange section, goat's cheese, and slivered almonds - it sounds weird, but it tasted amazing!  Our other most favorite was a thin piece of salmon cooked to perfection, slighted toasty on top, with a puree of potato, cauliflower and cream to the side along with raspberries.  Such unique combinations, and so finely prepared!  Wow!  it was worth every penny.

After our delicious lunch, we took the metro in to DC where we went to the Museum of the American Indian.  I loved the building.  It made me feel good to be in it.  I don't recall any right angles except for the doorways.  All was curves and circles.  Quite wonderful.  What I didn't like about it though, was all the stimulation.  It was noisy - lots of family groups, tons of kids - which in and of itself is great - it's wonderful for a museum to be used!  But the exhibits were distracting as could be.  It was difficult for me to get the overview of what they were showing, then, in each pod, one for each of 16 or so tribes, there was just too much to see.  There was a diarama-type exhibit with lots of artifacts.  There was also usually a video with spoken dialogue as part of it.  There were also many things to read and digest.  Often there was also a computer touch screen where you could interact to learn more.  I found it like trying to watch CNN with the streaming news on the top of the screen and the bottom while watching the reporter at the same time, if not a split screen.  My brain is simply not equipped to absorb so much information at once.  Chris and I both left completely exhausted after just 2-3 hours.  We went back to the hotel and took a nap.  Done in!  (Oh, one delight there was an exhibity by Brian Jungen which was quite fantastic.  He takes all sorts of regular stuff, like golf bags, and makes copies of cultural artifacts out of them.  An example is totem poles made out of golf bags.  They're wonderfully inventive and interesting and weird and a great comment about today's society.  We loved that!  This picture is of a skull made of softballs and baseballs.)

More next time about the play Saturday and Sunday...