Thoughts on a Departure

Cancelling my diplomatic passport after a quarter century of service

I visited the special issuance passport office to cancel my book, passing old haunts on return.

The badging office at the Red Cross building, then the headquarters of the American Foreign Service Association. Beyond, Riverside Liquors and a CVS, both now shuttered.

I passed State Annex three, my seventh-floor perch from which I joined dark winter morning calls with forty-eight posts across Africa, shared my work-self with my sons on Take Your Child to Work Day. In the distance, the Harry S. Truman building where I swore an oath in the diplomatic reception rooms, parents and sister’s family down from Connecticut to share the moment.

I continued along Virginia Ave, passing the old Allen Lee Hotel, now the Hive, formerly a Peace Corps training site. I crossed 23^rd and passed Columbia Plaza, first among State annexes and home to medical clearances and the Board of Examiners assessing the future of our service. My final assignment.

I went left at the Saudi Embassy, which issued my first diplomatic visa. Lurking behind it, the Watergate complex where on rainy mornings I would park. The majestic Kennedy Center on my right, I continued out onto the bridge across the Potomac, large fish slapping the surface and diving again.

For years I cycled across this bridge through winter cold and summer rains. At Roosevelt Island I hopped in the car and started the engine. On the radio, U2 had just started that old familiar pluck and hum and jangling.

I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

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