I spent this morning in DC (speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center) and was back in my new home of Boston by mid-afternoon. It was a two metro-system day. DC is where I lived from age 22 until last July, and it’s where I experienced most of the “transition to adulthood”: my last graduation, first full-time job, first apartment, first mortgage, first publications, marriage, kids, and even one kid’s graduation from high school. Needless to say, it is full of nostalgia for me. Here are some of today’s experiences that triggered memories: fall leaves crunching underfoot on a hot and humid day, official buildings shimmering in the smog at the end of long vistas, African American voices and faces (relatively very scarce in Middlesex County, MA), the “Style” section of the Washington Post, Southern accents, huge expanses of sidewalk, knots of people in suits with government ID’s hanging from their necks, soldiers in desert fatigues, the Metro coasting quietly between stations, and commuters on their way from places I have been–exurban subdivisions in Loudoun County, million-dollar cottages in Chevy Chase, condos in Silver Spring, and row houses in Shaw.