Washington, D.C
I swapped the Cotswolds for Washington DC – nothing prepares you for how odd and wild America is
I was so homesick I had to stop looking at images on social media of my friends in beloved, familiar landscapes of home. At times I felt my life had been reduced to getting stuck in underground car parks in a car that was too big at an exit barrier that would reject my bank card.
Most of all, I was confused by how very foreign America felt. I’ve consumed huge amounts of American novels, television shows, movies and music, but living here is a very different thing, and in some senses our shared language makes the shock of the foreign even more confusing. This country, I’m learning, is odder and wilder than anything I’d prepared myself for, its food, education, humour, language, climate, landscape and emotional sensibilities all very different to ours, and the fabric of this wildly multicultural society defies definition.
This also makes it beautiful and exciting: a normal Saturday can involve taking our sons to karate lessons with their Iranian-American teacher, followed by lunch at an Ethiopian café and coffee in a Jewish deli, before driving into rural Pennsylvania to catch the end of an Amish quilt sale and grabbing tacos in a Tex Mex café on the way home. I love the wild sense of possibility here, and the collision of an infinite number of cultures and races, which is unlike anywhere else.
Looking back, I can see we all, apart from Pete, who was already acclimatised, went through a period of acute culture shock, something that’s subsided slowly, tentatively, as we’ve started to create a sense of home, albeit impermanently, in DC. Autumn brought with it the sugary thrill of an American Halloween, with life-size pirate ships of model skeletons and huge blow-up ghosts decorating houses, and trick or treating – a vast, communal activity, where adults chatted around front-lawn fires while the children darted madly around lugging pillow-cases of candy.
I love the American impulse to decorate the outside of houses, not just at Halloween, but for any festival, light-up candy canes and life-size sledges on front lawns lingering right into February, when they’re replaced by ditzy pink lights and blow-up hearts, for Valentine’s Day, then swiftly replaced again by bright green shamrocks made from tinsel for St Patrick’s Day.
In the winter, snow lay thick and bright white for 10 days everywhere, and Dash and Lester earned forty dollars shovelling snow from front yards, like they were in a movie. Early spring has brought the astonishing froth of cherry blossom over the Tidal Basin, and we have favourite walks through Rock Creek Park, which brings a surprising sense of the wild, natural world right into the middle of the city, just blocks from the blacked out SUVs and presidential cavalcades of the White House.
Everything in America is, of course, bigger, but embracing these seasonal rituals has helped the children feel at home in a city totally at odds with the rural landscape they knew as home. We wanted the children to go to American state schools, and they’ve swapped their village school, where they knew all the 100 pupils, for much bigger schools with an incredibly diverse intake, swapping break for recess, a peg for lockers and PE for basketball, and are learning about periods of American history they knew nothing about.
The definition of home will always be England, and sometimes I feel gratified by how much the children miss the fields around our house, the green where they played and the village shop where they went for Haribos. I’m pleased that that landscape I love so much is in their souls and is the place they think of when we talk about home, but it’s exciting to watch their horizons literally expanding by the experience of our big American adventure. I still feel homesick, of course, but transplanting our life is also showing me that home can be a feeling as much as a place, and represented by a person more than a feeling, because more than anywhere else, home for me is with Pete.
The Giant on The Skyline by Clover Stroud (Doubleday) is out now
WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — A Texas man accused of shooting at a United States Secret Service agent near the Washington Monument earlier this month has been indicted on federal charges, the Justice Department announced Friday.
A federal grand jury indicted 45-year-old Michael Marx with “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon” and “using, carrying, possessing, brandishing, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence,” in connection with the May 4 incident, in which a stray bullet struck a teenage bystander.
“Today’s indictment reflects the gravity of the defendant’s actions on one of the most heavily visited public spaces in the nation,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Friday, in part. “The evidence shows Marx not only carried an illegal firearm into DC, but he fired it at uniformed officers, wounding an innocent teenage bystander who was simply visiting the National Mall with his family on a spring afternoon.”
Authorities previously charged Marx with assaulting federal officers with a dangerous weapon, using and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
According to court documents, an undercover Secret Service agent initially noticed Marx trying to conceal a gun on the right side of his body near 15th Street and Madison Drive NW shortly after 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon of the shooting.
At the same time, the motorcade for Vice President J.D. Vance was leaving the White House, passing through the area just up the street.
Uniformed Secret Service officers arrived to provide backup, finding Marx along the path of Vance’s motorcade. The attorney’s office said officers began to give the Texas man verbal commands, but he started running through a crosswalk and eventually fired at one of the agents as he reached the sidewalk.
The bullet struck the teenage bystander, who was walking behind the agent, in the leg, according to the DOJ.
Agents quickly returned fire, striking Marx in the hand, left arm, and upper body, according to court documents.
Court documents state that agents used Marx’s Texas driver’s license, which he was carrying, to identify him as the gunman. Investigators also identified various aliases Marx allegedly went by, including Patrick Michael and Michael Zavici.
While in the hospital, he allegedly made statements to officers, including ”F— the White House,” and “kill me, kill me, kill me,” the DOJ noted in a release.
Police found a Sig Sauer P365 handgun loaded with 9mm ammunition from the street where Marx fell.
4 things to know about the weather:
- Abundant sunshine
- Temps slightly cooler than average
- No rain in sight — again
- Mid-week warmup
May is drawing to a dry, comfortable close, in stunning contrast to the very soggy Memorial Day weather we saw last weekend.
That 10-day stretch of rain put a definite dent in our drought, according to the weekly national drought monitor, but it seems that was the end of the improvement for a while: There’s almost no clouds in sight for the DMV for several days.
Enjoy the many hours of sunshine on Saturday. The high pressure coming in from the Hudson Bay brings a stiff north wind, but the day will also be sunny and comfortable, with highs in the mid 70s.
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
The wind will die down after dark, and Sunday morning will be bordering on chilly. Expect widespread mid/upper 40s in most of the D.C. area, with urban centers and bayside communities staying just above 50°. Sunday afternoon will be just a bit warmer, in the mid 70s, but with far less of a breeze.
Highs will be back around 80° for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with overnight lows in the comfy 50s. It’ll be a perfect start to meteorological summer (June/July/August).
QuickCast
TODAY:
Sunshine Abounds, Breezy
Wind: North 10-15mph, Gust to 25 mph
Chance of Rain: 0%
HIGHS: 70° to 75°
TONIGHT:
Clear Skies
Winds Diminish
Wind: Northwest 10-15 mph
Chance Of Rain: 0%
LOWS: 46° to 54°
SUNDAY:
Mostly Sunny Skies
Pleasant Conditions
Light Breeze
Wind: NW 5 – 10 mph
Chance of Rain: 0%
HIGHS: 70° to 76°
MONDAY:
Partly Cloudy
Seasonable
Light Breeze
Wind: West/Northwest 10 mph
Chance of Rain: 0%
HIGHS: 76° to 82°
Sunrise: 5:45 Sunset: 8:26
Average High: 80° Average Low: 63°
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
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