Spring in D.C.

O ut with the selfie-sticks. Not that long ago, tourists were slowing down foot traffic in D.C., stopping to take pictures. This year, for cherry-blossom season in the nation’s capital, tourists were so serious about their vacations that they were using actual cameras instead of their phones. As I tried to maneuver between meetings in my usual last-minute style, the change was unmistakable. I wondered if it had something more to do with nostalgia, or perhaps even an attempt at a Lenten fast from excessive screen time.

Try to wait out the crowds, and the cherry blossoms will be gone. I got to D.C. for a few events during what was still the peak time for the bloom, and by that evening heavy rain had done them in – creating showers of pink around the Tidal Basin. Time is short.

You have a few mornings to attempt to beat the crowds — an impossible exercise, in my experience — and suddenly the blooms are dying. Isn’t that a bit like life? Spring is a good time to reset in order to avoid regrets. There’s something about new life that — if it doesn’t get your allergies going too intensely — inspires a new outlook, a yen to begin again.

I had my own personal retreat at my alma mater in town, the Catholic University of America. The school had asked me to speak to poli-sci students being inducted into the discipline’s honor society. Yes, it’s s a discipline. Yes, honor is not anathema to it. These young people have high hopes — even now — for what good can be done in public service. And they see politics as service, as charity, as a contribution to the common good, infused with respect for the dignity of the human person.

After my speech ended and the certificates were given, I meandered over to the campus chapel for a holy hour of prayer, praise and worship. While the campus is adjacent to one of the largest churches in the hemisphere, there are also some humble chapels around the grounds. I saw some of my politics kids come in to pray, and for Mass after. Now that’s something worth going to the nation’s capital for. That gave me hope! God renews us, if we let him. Praying with the students, I didn’t long to be in their places so much as I gave thanks to God for fresh energy to encourage the rest of us that this country is worth fighting for.

A few weeks before, I got to see some early blooming cherry blossoms on National Harbor, without the tourists. I only had my iPhone, but it was sufficient to prove it happened and share some of the joy the blooms seem to inspire.

I gave myself a birthday present and lingered before I got back on the train to New York. I spent a little time at the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art.

Art museums never get old.

And in addition to some old standbys by Gilbert Stuart and the treat of a few van Goghs, there was an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art about “The Voyage of Life” by Thomas Cole that seemed all too appropriate for the season.

Even if you didn’t take time to smell the cherry blossoms this spring, we’ve got a gift of a country that understands that life isn’t forever, and that it’s a temporary gift to be cherished and preserved. And, as it says on the base of the Washington memorial: Laus Deo (“Praise be to God”) with it all.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.