Last year, I helped to plan a Shavuot event in this ravishing church. Shavuot, the Jewish holiday commemorating receiving the Torah, is coming up again at the end of May.
I decided to use this shot of the church stairwell today not because I am obsessed with stairwells, but because I love how the serene spiral is interrupted by a cacophony of life and color.
Ain’t that how it always goes?
If the stairway feels like my ideal conditions for writing or thinking or healing–calm, solid, continuous–then the glaring orange traffic cones and the person running up the steps with a Giant grocery bag depict how reality crashes in.
Image: The National Swedenborgian Church of the Holy City, 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C. Photo by Rhea.
Rhea Kennedy Morgenstern, writer 