Funny thing, though. As soon as the body gets moving, the body revives. Across the bridge, down E Street, past the courts, past the museum. There are streets to cross, "don't walk" lights flashing. And there are corners to pause on, waiting for traffic to subside.
Doesn't matter. The momentum is there. Even with the starting and the stopping the forward motion is still in the toes and the balls of the feet, and it banishes the weariness.
Into the Penn Quarter now. Folks in red jerseys are going to a Capitals game. Office-workers slowing down in front of a watering hole; maybe they'll watch the game on screen. Tourists milling around the Spy Museum. But most of us are going home. The tide of movement is more out than in.
And the tide carries me from E to F Streets, past the bakery and the wax museum and the boutiques, past the shoppers and the bus-waiters, right to the dim, inviting Metro entrance, the escalators (if I'm lucky) working, and the hustle bustle of life underground making it impossible to do anything but move quickly along the platform until I reach the spot where I always stand, first entrance, second car, one of the less crowded spots.
Soon the train zooms up and I'm aboard. Not really sure how this all happened ... but it did!