The Blogs: My Best Ever Easter Celebration

On my 40th birthday — a birthday that sometimes falls on Easter — I wanted to do something special, something unforgettable. So, I flew to Washington, DC, a city that had long drawn me in like a magnet. Back then, it felt to me like heaven for a journalist: the holy temple, the place the entire world looked up to, the city upon a hill, alive with history, buzzing with high principles, and overflowing with museums and monuments just waiting to be explored.

I visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), walked under trees with cherry blossoms in full bloom, and spent a good amount of time at the National Air and Space Museum. This was a place I believe astronaut Stephen K. Robinson once mentioned in an email exchange. I had interviewed him for The Worldy, an online magazine run by Jennifer Zhang, a UCLA alumna who is now a successful filmmaker in the horror genre. I even signed up for a library card at the Library of Congress, marveling at its architecturally stunning building. I felt like I had entered another reality, sitting between the shelves, feeling like a character in a movie.

Sadly, I lost that Library of Congress card when my wallet was stolen while I was living in China, walking through a market in Xiamen just hours before my plane took off for Bangkok. I was so proud of that card. But I still have the report from the Xiamen police office that made a note of the missing wallet with all the cards in it. It might not be a big deal to most, but for me, it was. I still have the New York Times article I discovered in the Library of Congress—the one about Hitler, where I learned, to my surprise, that he was a vegetarian.

A vegetarian? Him? Oh my God.

And he loved dogs.

And you know what that discovery taught me—or rather, strengthened in me? That being vegetarian or a dog lover doesn’t exclude someone from being cruel to human beings. But we have a tendency to think in stereotypes and boxes. We quickly assume that if someone is a vegetarian or loves puppies, thus with a positive associated group, then they must be good people. Yet, good to whom?

Anyway, in that same email—or to be honest, it may have been in another—where Robinson mentioned the Air and Space Museum, we briefly discussed Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings. I was surprised that he found it majestic. It was played at John F. Kennedy’s funeral, so I always considered it quite melancholic. I guess astronauts’ brains work differently from those of us down here. They have to—because I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable being stuck up there in the International Space Station for months, unable to move freely and having to drink water recycled from… less pleasant sources.

But for a day or two, just for the fun of it? Yes, certainly. Why not? And some have already done it just for fun, because they had the resources. That proves that, as a poor person, you don’t have the same opportunities. You pass through life differently. Thus, when they fly to space with a shuttle, you take WOW Air and do stopovers in peaceful Iceland, find solace in Dostoevsky’s Poor People and Shakespeare and Rilke’s poetry, handwritten notes, letters, and emails written to you. You only get to the International Space Center by writing about it.

One evening, I caught a performance at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and met up with a very patriotic acquaintance from Los Angeles who happened to be there at the same time. I don’t quite remember how we met — maybe at Book Soup in Hollywood. I don’t even recall his name anymore. But I do remember the small American flag brooch he wore. I noticed it so much because I would never, ever wear a brooch with a flag. Having been born in Germany, where we learned extensively about world history, I always found excessive flag passion a bit off-putting.

But there we were, sitting across from each other. He, with his little flag attached to his jacket, and I, the curious observer. I wish I had written down what we talked about. Maybe I did. Some of my personal belongings are still sitting in my friend’s garage in North Hollywood. And traveling to the US right now to pick them up feels too risky. As tourists from Europe, we could potentially be locked up in a detention center. All I remember is that we had no follow-up meeting, and we peacefully parted.

As I passed by the White House on that Easter Monday, I noticed a steady stream of people going in. Curious, I walked up to a security guard and asked, “What’s going on in there?”

“There’s the Easter Egg Roll,” he said.

Easter Egg Roll? I know it sounds childish, but I truly didn’t know anything about this White House tradition.

On impulse, I asked if there was any chance I could go inside. I told him I contributed to The Worldy, the online magazine run by Jennifer Zhang, the former UCLA student who’s now a fairly successful horror screenwriter. It’s no longer online, but luckily, I had printed out some of the articles I wrote. And yes, I know—some people find it off-putting that I would have the audacity to do this without knowing everything and being totally prepared.

“Do you have any ID?” he asked.

“Yes, I do,” I said, and showed him my business card from The Worldy, where it said I was a Senior Global Correspondent. That business card with the title was a gift from Jennifer, because we all contributed to The Worldy for no pay. It was an act of true passion. And she wanted to show her appreciation this way.

“We have to do a background check, and we’ll get back to you. It can take a while. We’ll call you. What’s your number?”

While I waited, I strolled around the fenced-off perimeter of the White House and called my mother.

“You know where I’m calling you from? I’m in front of the White House,” I said. “I might be able to go inside.”

It was a highlight in my life. My mom still remembers it.

What happened next still feels surreal. They let me in. However, not with the crowd I had seen earlier, but into the press briefing room itself. Now, I’m not a political journalist. I’ve always been more interested in 20th-century history, psychology, and particularly in all of the arts — but I did my best to observe, absorb, and write a piece about it. I even took a picture of Scott McClellan with the professional press team. It was one of his final days on the job, and he was being pressed by journalists. He had to hold off questions about the National Intelligence Council report that came to the White House in January 2003—the one saying the Niger uranium claims were unfounded. There were also questions about US actions toward Iran, the Quartet’s (President Bush, Secretary General Kofi Annan, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller, and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov) view on Hamas, and even the future of homosexual couples at the Easter Egg Roll.

I wonder whether homosexual couples will be welcomed this year. I would hate to see people like writer Andrew Solomon, his partner, and their children denied the same opportunities. Psychology shows us that children raised by joyful, intentional parents often experience far less distress than those raised by divorcees, unhappy heterosexual couples, especially those struggling with addictions, or by parents who felt pressured into parenthood when their hearts longed for something else.

To the last point, Scott McClellan responded, “The Easter Egg Roll is a very happy tradition at the White House that dates back to 1878. It is a time for families, and we welcome all families and their children who want to come and participate.”

Well, anyway, I might have gotten some things wrong in my reporting at that press briefing, but what an absolutely elevating feeling that was. I loved the US for that. That one’s work for equality, passion, curiosity, initiative, and courage is being rewarded. A woman like me, with a modest background, could enter those doors.

It was like reaching for the stars and getting to touch them.

But that wasn’t all. I remember the hush that fell as President George W. Bush arrived in a long black limousine. I wasn’t a Republican or a Bush supporter, but still — a US president passing by your window. That was the thrill. I had the same feeling in Berlin when I was living in Schöneberg, and Democratic President Bill Clinton and his entourage passed by. It’s these little moments that make life a bit more interesting. Even the professional journalists rushed to the windows to catch a glimpse.

Later, I met up with journalist Peter Ross Range, a friend of Michael S. Cullen, the American and Berlin-based historian and writer. I had first met Michael at a party hosted by Guy Raz, back when he was still NPR’s foreign correspondent in Berlin. Peter, who was Michael’s friend, had left a good impression on me. He had adopted children with disabilities and once gifted me Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet after I quoted “To be or not to be” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet to him — in English — during a phone call from the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA to Washington, DC.

Somehow, all these connections — scattered across countries and years — converged in Washington, DC, on that Easter in 2006. And that 40 before the birthday of a woman is a number that carries a lot of weight in the lives of women. It reminds me of a colleague’s joke once: “When are we going to get married? Your eggs are getting old.” Ha, ha!

Well, anyway.

It was a memorable, memorable birthday and Easter.

I miss those days when doors were still opening.

For too long now, they’ve remained closed — and that has left me, at times, a little melancholic.

However, it’s Good Friday, Karfreitag, and my birthday today. But here in France, where I live, Karfreitag is not an official holiday, just as it wasn’t in China or in the US. And of course, in the Jewish tradition, one celebrates Passover instead. Still, I’m going to make it special and celebrate it in Erik Satie’s hometown, Honfleur—once the city that inspired the Impressionists, but also the place from which many slaves were shipped to North America.

Luckily, those days are over.

The sun is still shining, and I hope it stays — at least through the afternoon.

So, a Happy Easter, a Happy Passover, and a Happy Birthday to everyone celebrating today. Let’s think of ourselves — if only for a moment — as reincarnations of Albert Einstein, who died on April 18, 1955. He wasn’t just brilliant and musical; he was also born just 81 kilometers from my hometown. And perhaps most remarkably, he possessed one of the rarest and most beautiful human traits: the ability to admit when he was wrong.

So long.