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Adams Morgan, DC | The Line Hotel
I’ve been trying to figure out the meaning and execution of rest in a space where I constantly juggle multiple jobs, freelance work, school, and constant curiosity as a writer.
I don’t balance these things well, so often I combine these things to get more work done. Although, multitasking is a myth. I have found the amalgamation of rest and creativity and interesting combination that fits best between the interludes of my day job and class schedule
I recently took a trip to stay at the The Line Hotel I’m Washington, DC. A 5-Star excursion sits in the middle of a politically dense, culturally diverse, and widely misunderstood city. During my stay I focused on taking pictures that captured the essence of both need for rest and the sensibilities of my surroundings.
Despite the thousands of people spinning around me going about their day-to-day work, I chose to concentrate on the inanimate space around me. This hotel’s architecture and attention to design create a unique living experience - almost spiritual.
This hotel was built on the original foundation of a church. Walkways, pews, staircases, and various windows call attention to the design of the average church. The average church should be a place of worship for people to gather, for people to be solemn.
The architecture of the hotel that reminds itself of the church it used to be draws me to the idea about what rest used to mean when I was younger and the respite art can be to go along with the necessity of rest. I know that was a mouthful, but I tend to look at something and try to see all its parts at once. The spiritual parts in me see the world in many ways. I look for ways to make art speak to the attention I work towards everyday.
I sometimes think of art as the attention to the spiritual movement of creativity and it’s output on our lives. The attention to many things at once sounds like an oxymoron... but the truth is as an artist, I live in that eclectic space of balancing creative, business, and personal interests. They result in essays, poems, and photos that speak to many parts of my divided self at once.
When I think of DC I think of many things at once: both a people and political, an arrangement of gentrified studio apartments, a cultural hub for historic shops and restaurants, slobbering night life and clubs, mom and pop diners.
A place that has so many eyes and thoughts on it doesn’t seem like a place of rest. But I love hiding in crowded rooms. The allure of everyone watching everything but what you’re doing.
I wasn’t loud during this trip. I read new books. Write poems about myself and the faces walking the hallways. I spent time with a woman. I made sure to watch the sunset come through the windows. I looked from my top floor with no words, but watched the lights peak through the rooms, as the stars filled the skies and the bedrooms tried to match the intensity decorating the sky.
I was glad to escape, write and, create. It was something like rest. It was something I needed.
