One year ago, I lived in Washington, D.C. I walked amid suits and skyscrapers, museums and monuments. Every building declared that this was a Very Important City, and every politician and think tank and NGO affirmed it. The government was wrestling with the budget, implementing infrastructure projects, and directing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; lobbyists were pressuring Congress to fund X and support Y and oppose Z.
“For the betterment of the country!” they all cried. “For the betterment of the world!”
On the side of this bustle—and even falling into it occasionally, as often as an unpaid intern could fall into the decision-making that shaped the country—I built a routine for myself.
Each morning, I woke up early and wrote. Usually short stories, but sometimes poetry. I discovered some of my ideas on life and love and self as I watched them appear in words, and then sentences, and then paragraphs, and eventually some of those paragraphs were published, where they hopefully helped someone else figure out his or her ideas about the same. I read, too, over breakfast. Usually something by Hemingway. One story from those months stands out in particular: “Cross Country Snow.” It was not a famous story, at least not compared to “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” or “Big Two-Hearted River,” but it meant something to me, because it was about saying goodbye, and I was getting ready to say a lot of goodbyes when I graduated in May. It made the prospect easier, seeing someone else describe the pains of separation.
Then I would close my book and walk to work. Orderly mobs with agendas of social change and economic prosperity flowed around me, people branded with “D.C. haircuts” and business casual. Briefcases and laptops, ties and lapel pins. I passed millions of dollars in clothing every day. Millions more in salaries. Many millions more in ideas and persuasions. These were the people shaping the nation, people who understood the policies and programs that most of us only hear about while flipping through radio stations. Half a block from the White House, I ducked into 729 15th Street NW, the office of American Forests.
I researched tree-planting projects and took minutes for coalition meetings. I followed two dozen environmental blogs: advancements in green technology, news about climate change, reports of poaching and illegal logging. I wrote blog posts, too, highlighting environmental problems and proposing solutions. And all around me, flurries of reports and emails. It was a nonstop information exchange, raising awareness and coordinating action.
“We need pest control!”
“Support CFLR projects and SUFC!”
“Save the longleaf pines!”
We waged a campaign for forests. Advocating to Congress and marketing ourselves. Social media and mailing lists, magazines and blogs. The battle to be heard, to be read. Progress—anyone’s progress—would only happen with support.
Eight hours later, I would leave the office. I would walk the half hour back home, my iPod playing music or poetry. I listened to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” quite often during those months—Eliot’s confession of a normal life, of old age, of unattained greatness. The neglected chance to be better. It was that poem, along with the book Blue Highways and a few others things that eventually inspired my hitchhiking trip across the country.
During one of those afternoon walks, someone stopped me on the sidewalk. He wore an orange shirt and held a clipboard, and although I knew he was collecting signatures or asking for donations, I took out my earbuds anyway.
“If you could change one thing about the world,” he asked, “what would it be?”
“That’s a good question.” I smiled politely. “I’d need time to think about it.”
“Just one thing—one thing to make the world better.”
“There’s a lot of good options.”
“The first one that comes to your mind.”
“I don’t know…”
He smiled encouragingly.
“I wish people would read more.”
The man made a face. “That they’d read more?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, books?”
“Books, poems, newspapers. Basic literacy.” I shrugged. “Just more reading.”
“Huh.”
“I think it would make people more empathetic,” I said. “And more informed—but in a way that’s better than people just automatically being empathic and informed. In a way that’s beautiful.”
“Well. Okay.” He glanced at his clipboard. “Our organization brings food to children in third world countries, and we’re asking people to donate just a dollar day.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m an unpaid intern.”
He said he understood. I put my earbuds back in, and while I walked home, I listened to the rest of the poem.
NPR called Josh “a modern-day Jack Kerouac” after he wrote about his 7,000-mile, no-money hitchhiking journey through the United States. After hitchhiking, he found homes in the Pacific Northwest, the Episcopal Church, and the post calvin. He now helps authors introduce their books to the world as the marketing manager for HarperCollins Leadership, builds websites as the owner of Branded Look LLC, and makes trail maps as the owner of Where We’ve Been Trail Maps. Josh’s writing has appeared in places such as The Emerson Review, Front Porch Review, and Perspectives.
