Dear reader, let me start by saying this: what you’ve asked of me feels impossible. When I think about what defines my childhood in D.C., I realize it’s not one story but a symphony stitched together by sound and movement. Choosing a single moment is like trying to order when you’re already hungry; everything sounds good, everything feels essential.
I grew up in Columbia Heights in the 1990s and early 2000s. As I recall that time, a few words come to mind: innocence, whimsy, curiosity, and most of all, possibility. I was an “outside kid,” a tiny adventurer roaming until the sky dimmed. Being indoors while laughter and music carried on without me felt like punishment. My childhood was defined by motion, by hand games on the blacktop, basketballs against backboards, sneakers skidding on gravel, and backflips off chain-link fences. I know this city not only in my mind but in my body.
But my emotions are also layered — muddy, even. Because what I know now that I didn’t know then is that everything changes, whether we’re ready or not. And D.C. — of all places — has reinvented itself at a pace few cities can match. The city I knew has transformed a dozen times over. I often say, “My parents’ generation lived through the rubble, and mine was part of the rebuild.” My childhood moved to that rhythm, against the hum of construction and the pulse of new beginnings.
My childhood was molded by overlapping customs and traditions, by the sound of community, the mingling of cultures, and the joy and resilience that played out in the open air. The best examples of this were two festivals along Georgia Avenue that captured all the action, the magic, and the feeling of being raised by this city…