A Native Georgetowner Says Goodbye 

Goodbye, Georgetown. I am moving away, after a lifetime in this neighborhood (I did leave for several years for college and jobs elsewhere).  

I am a native Georgetowner, raised on the corner of 30th and Q, playing kick-the-can and dodgeball (the worst game ever) in the alley down the street, going to Sara’s for popsicles, climbing over fences into neighbors’ backyards — something that would get you arrested or shot at today. It was a lot less fussy here then.  

But I am leaving, at least for a while. Editor-in-Chief Robert Devaney has kindly permitted me to write this short piece about the things I will miss most. And the things I will not miss at all.  

I will pine for so many things: My lovely garden, small but fussed over and adored. A garden that no doubt won’t last much past my departure, since the houses on both sides of me have been built out, and someone will probably do the same to my house. The D.C. government, and many of my would-be neighbors, seem to have forgotten, at least lately, that small and medium-sized houses have their charms, and that green space is what makes Georgetown so desirable.  

I won’t miss the construction trucks outnumbering residents’ cars on my street, or the mania to build up and out. I will miss my bunny, who trims the grass and who lives in the back of my yard, swanning around like he owns the place. And the doves, and the robins.  

I’ll miss the yellow corridor of ginkgo trees in Rose Park in the fall, and the one day in November when all the berries fall off at once. I’ll miss the massive and gorgeous wisteria framing a garage down an alley off 33rd Street. I’ll miss the cool door knocker on P near 28th, and all the little touches and architectural details all over residential Georgetown. I’ll miss crisp walks right after the time changes in the fall, when people haven’t pulled their front curtains down yet and you can see into their living rooms and sneak into their lives for a moment.  

I’ll really miss my people. Maurice at Morgan’s, always ready for some banter. My mother used to say he was the only person she wanted at her funeral. Ingola, towering and opinionated and funny. David Dunning, the Mayor of Rose Park. The dynamo Elizabeth Miller. Jimmy, my mailman, who yells “How’re the dogs, Alison?” every time I run into him (which is a lot). And I’ll miss my wonderful neighbors, both on my side of the ’hood and on the west side, across the great rushing divide of Wisconsin Avenue, which is so familiar … and yet so fresh and exotic.   

I won’t miss the giant SUVs stopping dead on Georgetown’s narrow streets, as if that will somehow make them fit better. In fact, I won’t miss drivers from Virginia and Maryland at all. Learn how to drive and buy a smaller car.  

I won’t miss the proliferation of banks along Wisconsin and M; not only do they add nothing to the street scene, they don’t even make sense — who goes to a bank anymore?   

Finally, I will miss it. All of it. Baked and Wired. The trees in Montrose. The behind-the-scenes drama at CAG. The Georgetown Garden Tour. The European parents with their truck-bikes full of kids and groceries. George Saunders reading from “Lincoln in the Bardo” at the Renwick Chapel. Dumbarton Oaks. The dog who hated my dog just on principle (you have to kind of admire that). The big crowd at Saturday morning Al-Anon at the Westside Club. The toddler scene at Rose. The snow days when it’s just dog walkers in the middle of unplowed streets. The daffodils on the hill down to Rock Creek Parkway in late February.  

I’ll miss all of it.  

tagsalison schaferGeorgetowngeorgetownerpersonal essay