Washington, DC House Party

DC House Party – Part One

“So how do you know Hanon?” asks a bright-eyed twenty-something girl and her boyfriend as I take a seat beside them on the fireplace after introducing myself.

“Who’s Shanon?” I ask, mishearing in the noise of the crowd.

“This is his housewarming party! How did you get here?”

I find myself mixing with an interesting group of young professionals, at a house party in the city centre of the nation’s capital. There are two distinct groups here, friends who attended college with Hanon in another state, and friends he knows from work here in DC. That’s what everyone calls it. No one says Washington as if one could suddenly get confused by that western state.

The young man sitting beside me works for a non-profit that deals with creating programs to help at-risk youth. This is an issue of which I can converse at-length. During my short teaching stint in Winnipeg I visited a number of schools desperately trying to solve the complicated situation of Canada’s First Nations people. As a population, many are not enjoying the same lives as mainstream Canadians. Several generations of oppression has left most members of their culture disenfranchised, hopeless, and feeling trapped in a cycle of poverty and addiction. In a special school designed to honour and uplift aboriginal culture, it was typical to find three students present for a grade ten class with an enrolment of twenty-seven.

His girlfriend wanders-off mingling and returns about ten minutes later, “what are you guys talking about?” Off she goes again, and I am sharing my feeling that mentoring might be an effective strategy when dealing with youth. From my experience, the kids felt hopeless because they did not see a positive future for themselves. This was the case because they often didn’t know anyone in their circle who had broken out of the cycle. No one was employed back on the reserve, a single mother may have brought to them to the city hoping to escape the relentless poverty and drug addiction and alcoholism only to find that it was also rampant in the city. They felt that opportunities were closed to them. Sure they knew teachers and social workers, but they saw those people as different than them. They saw themselves as being members of a group for whom dreams were not possible. What’s the point in going to school, I’m never going to graduate anyway, no one ever has in my family.

Girlfriend is back again, “Now what are you talking about?” I realise that I am detaining her boyfriend from mingling with her. I stand-up and change the topic to Vietnam, where she spent a few months teaching last year.

I chat with some friendly jocks about the international auto show I attended today with my friend Sam, who is a car enthusiast. He is the one person I knew coming to this party. We took the train from Richmond yesterday.

When Sam was thirteen, he went to summer camp with Brenda. They have not seen each other since then but they reconnected on Facebook. When Sam recently moved to Richmond they planned to reconnect. Brenda is dating Hanon, so when Sam contacted her to meet-up during our visit she invited us to this party.

“Oh, I see. So you’re from Richmond, that’s why we haven’t seen you before.”

“No, I’m from Toronto.” “But you live in Richmond.” “No, I live in Toronto. I’m from New Brunswick, that’s east of Maine.”

“How long have you lived in DC?” someone asks, having partially heard my story through the grapevine three hours later. “I just came yesterday, I’m here for the weekend.” “But you’re the Canadian. If someone had asked me who was the Canadian, I would have guessed you.” “Because I’m wearing German jeans?” My black jeans have a checkered silvery pattern, they are sewn with multiple lines of very thick thread and have some unusual edgy details. The rest of the crowd are wearing either beige pants or blue jeans. All in black I stand out as looking a bit more urban which is not generally people’s idea of what Canadians look like. “No, your hair.” “Oh, no, I’m not like following some Canadian hair trend or anything. This big mop is does not represent any regional hairstyle.” “You just look Canadian.” Well now that you know! From my considerable experience, most everywhere I have gone in the US people have assumed me to be a local or at most a domestic transplant.

“Did you meet many locals; were you able to make local friends?” I ask a fellow who spent some weeks traveling in Cambodia and Laos. “You know what it’s like in Southeast Asia, it’s a lot easier to meet people than it is here.” “Yes,” I agree, ironically.

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I introduce myself to a couple who are looking a bit separate from the group. By now I have narrowed my introduction down to, “I am a friend of Sam who is a friend of Brenda who is dating Hanon and I am currently on a road-trip from Toronto.” You see, I didn’t quite know my connection when I arrived, but it’s clear to me now. “My friend is having a party,” had been enough info for me. “What’s your next stop?”

“My next specific stop is meeting friends in Acworth, Georgia.” “That’s where we just moved here from! Cobb county, Acworth is in Cobb county!” New in town, they also don’t know most of the people at this party. She works with Brenda. He is a performance artist, he paints with his hands while dancing. He is hoping to expand his horizons being in a new town, and having closer proximity to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. A really great couple, we chat for a while. Although he is clearly very optimistic, he seems to think he’s going to become “the next Michael Jackson” in scope, I encourage him to be patient. From my experience in business, being in the right place at the right time is huge in finding success. My former partner and I happened to a city that had a vacancy for pop culture stores when we happened to stumble into selling it. That is about as strategic as I will admit to us having been. And it’s a very common story. Ask people how they came to do what they do and more often than not they will recount a tale of many wandering and meandering paths rather than a straight trajectory. “The right time and place could happen for you next month, but it could also happen for you in seven years. If it’s your passion then you just have to keep doing your best getting it out there and not give-up before that magic moment.” I guess the same applies to me and my writing. I just need to keep at it too.

I sit down where there’s room and cause some ill feelings from one of the jocks. The girl he has been chatting to now turns to me. She engages me in conversation and I see him rolling his eyes as I reply, “No, I’m just visiting from Canada.” What does he expect me to say? Don’t talk to me, that guy who suddenly hates me was clearly hoping to sleep with you? Of course he thinks we’re on the same team and assumes I’m playing the same game.

To Be CONTINUED

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Just thought you might be curious to see the jeans I was talking about. I don’t have pics from that night, but I was wearing these with black shoes and a plain black long-sleeve shirt. Very Canadian.

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