Washington D.C. Daybook: Smithsonian Institution

I made arrangements to pick up my friend today at Sibley Hospital, following her surgery. I hadn't been there in a while, and I was impressed with the staff and ambiance. Money will do that, won't it? We talked on our drive home about how much we missed the literary lectures at the Woodrow Wilson Institute for International Scholars which used to be conducted by Dr. James Morris in the 1990's. At that time, the Institute was housed in the Castle at the Smithsonian Institution, and a visiting writer would be provided a stipend to come and present a paper on an agreed upon subject. It was a wonderful physical space to inhabit. The library where the lectures were held had a small cathedral-like rose window, circular stairs and walkways to the stacks, a bronze bust of Woodrow Wilson and Gothic arched, leaded windows. The outer reception room was oval and covered in a William Morris wallpaper with bookcases and wicker furniture. Very Virginia Wolff; not that Virginia and William were of the same aesthetic, but the overall feel of the place. The elevator that takes you to the upper levels is probably the original: old and wobbly and has a brass cross-hatched gate that slides in front of you--a highly atmospheric setting to sit in and contemplate literature. William Morris Society

When I was a student, and working during the summer for the Smithsonian (thinking I would be a paleontologist) in the National Museum of Natural History I would try to escape the tourists on my lunch hour, and I discovered most of them never set foot in the older Freer Art Gallery. Once tourists came up to me and asked if it was a post office. I loved being in the Freer because it was quiet and cool and the courtyard was a lovely wisteria covered atrium. My favorite rooms were where the Japanese screens were displayed, but especially the Whistler Peacock Room. The Peacock Room The guards became used to seeing me sit in there, and one day one of the guards asked if I knew that the room had a secret window (usually covered by the painted shutters.) He took me over to the corner where the window is housed, and he pulled the shutters back, and I was allowed a rare viewing of the Peacock Room in daylight. Days like that are gifts to be savored and treasured over time.

I was given fairly free reign to wander around the museum before opening hours, but the one place I was always restricted to enter was the Gem Hall where the Hope Diamond is displayed. I was always poking around back stairwells in the museum, and one day it backfired on me. I went through a walkway to cut into another area, and I entered a fire door which slammed behind me and remained locked. I was high up in the museum and facing an interior wall, never seen by the public, and very dirty windows going into these depths that spiked my adrenaline. Everything was out of scale and huge. I knew I was in serious trouble when I glanced down and saw that each stair tread was coated in a thick layer of dust...and not one footprint. The lack of footprints held me there frozen. The first thought that popped into my mind was "I could die back here." It was obvious the stairs were not in good condition and equally obvious that no one had been in this area of the museum for a long time. My point of entry, before I went through the door, was isolated, and I spent a few seconds berating myself for being so stupid. If I pounded on the door for help, I would certainly be hauled before some authority, so there I was, the wall behind me pressing me into this narrow space between itself and the window and nothing but unstable wooden stairs winding all the way down to ground level. I was grateful I wasn't afraid of heights, but the visual space I was confined in was unnerving, given it's height and the window and this sense of being held by a thread over a big drop. At each level I would stop and test the next door (always locked) all the way to the bottom. When I got to the bottom I could hear the bouncing voices of the tourists on the other wall, I tested the door and came walking out right next to an exhibit. People were so startled to see me, as I was them, that we all jumped.

The Smithsonian had brought over a Gutenberg Press from Germany that summer, and I befriended the two printers sent to operate it. One day, one of them presented me with a piece of linen, and he let me print a page of the Gutenberg Bible on to it. I now have that framed in my living room. When you are visiting the Natural History Museum, you never really think what is going on behind it's walls, but I was so lucky to be allowed to roam (pre-9/11) and see the drawers full of skeletons or butterflies or ferns. It's the treasures and study behind the walls that are what the tourists should really be seeing. I was always grateful for my time spent there in learning and, quite frankly, snooping.

Johannes Gutenberg