Dear Mr. Vogel

This post is a little different from my normal wanderlust stories, but it’s ever so important. For some background, check out http://november-project.com/npxnps-dca/

Dear Mr. Vogel,

I have to wake up in six hours to teach English to four waves of unrelenting Korean elementary school students tomorrow morning, but I am writing to you from 6,932 miles across an ocean and joining the international NP writing club because this is important. This is so, so important.

Let me start by telling you that I have never liked exercise. I have never been a morning person, and I have never been a social butterfly. I have always been more of the “stay at home and sleep in late and play computer games at night and eat cup ramen from a Styrofoam bowl” type of guy, but somehow I found November Project DC one morning and this is why you’re getting this letter.

I’m not going to tell you that November Project made me into some sort of athletic god that loves mornings and has become the extrovert he’s always dreamed of becoming, but I am going to tell you that the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and all of the NPS sites are more than just an outdoor gym for these people. In a city packed with nine to five jobs and stiff suits with suffocating ties, these steps are a warm and welcoming home in an all too transient District .

November Project is a group that is about opening up a city to its citizens and building a community that cares for one another. It’s about making the city into a home, and not just a place to pay rent and deposit a monthly paystub. It’s about a kid living on different DC blocks for seven years but not truly seeing the city until he joined a few sweaty strangers one morning. It’s about seeing (and exercising) in places you normally wouldn’t see with people you normally wouldn’t have met. It’s about looking forward to Wednesdays (have you ever looked forward to a Wednesday?) because you get to open your day with a beautiful sunrise in a city you’re discovering for the first time every week. It’s about being proud to say “I am from Washington, DC.”

But most importantly for me, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial were a place I could be myself. In a world where the masks we wear define our ability to earn a “stable and respectable” income and job title (whatever that means), the Lincoln Memorial was one of the only places I didn’t feel like a Halloween costume. I felt like I could explore a city without happy hours and hazy clubs. I could show up and discover hidden gems without opening my mouth or pretending to be someone I am not. And I could do it surrounded by the most loving, comforting strangers in the entire world.

I am quiet. I am reserved. I don’t talk to strangers, and I don’t do particularly well with meeting new people. I’m not writing this letter because I met dozens of lifelong friends at November Project DC. I am not writing because everyone remembers my name now that I am gone or because I am going to get a loud personal greeting when I return from my teaching job abroad. In fact, the majority of NP DC may not even know who I am. I’m writing this letter to you, asking you to let November Project DC continue to use the Lincoln steps and other NPS sites because somewhere out there, and more often than you might think, there are other people just like me.

There is a kid fresh out of college who has moved to DC for some big job without knowing anyone to call his friend. There is a kid who is scared of meeting new people, who thinks that he’s signed up for a lifetime sentence of wearing different masks to climb the corporate ladder. There is a kid who comes home from work and plays computer games and eats cup noodles and wants to sleep in late and let the city swallow him whole every night.

But when this kid finds November Project DC, waiting for him every Wednesday morning at the feet of our 16^th President, he will fall in love with a city and find a place to call his home.

Sincerely,

Brian Wong

Current Residence: Seoul, South Korea

Home: Washington, DC