The Count

I recently took the exam to be a census taker (and did very well on it, by the way).
I worked the 1990 census and taking the test last week brought back a swarm of memories. The exam, given in the back room of a coffee shop, had the same taste and texture of the meeting two decades ago. The forms, the pencils, a young woman having to read government language verbatim with out too much eye rolling to a roomful of people who didn't really want to knock on strangers' doors but really needed a job, even a very temporary job.
It felt like just a few months had past since we (me and my census pod) would gather for coffee with Fran, our pot smoking, Buddhist leader to be handed our weekly assignments.
I loved working the census. It was a beautiful Spring and I remember just walking and walking. The vast majority of people were very friendly, apologetic that they'd forgotten to send back the forms. I got to know my neighborhood well.
I had a curious feeling that the last twenty years hadn't taken place at all. Like my life was a piece of string and I'd brought the ends together. I'd been suspended in amber, forever twenty-six.
Walking home from the test, through the very same streets I'd canvased in 1990, I came to the corner of John and 18th. On one side of the street was the apartment of a man I'd dated in 1991, on the other, the apartment of a boyfriend from 1994.
The clock hadn't stopped in '90, it had just started. Time standing still was an illusion.
In the last twenty years I've written and produced dozens of plays (hundreds if you count short ten minute pieces), moved five times, gotten married, been to Portugal, Spain, France, Thailand and Dubai. Friends have had kids (who are now graduating high school), friends have died. The bulk of my life has happened since that census.
Jeff and I are looking for a house now, and there is no way we can afford to buy a place here on Capitol Hill, where I've lived for sixteen of the last twenty years.
So, if I do end up working the 2010 count, there's a good chance it will be a goodbye to this neighborhood.