Big Beautiful World 35 - Monstrous Magnolia, Washington DC

It's a big beautiful world out there. Please enjoy it responsibly." We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future." -- John F. Kennedy, in his speech accepting the nomination for Democratic US Presidential Candidate, July 15, 1960. I was recently in DC and...I'll be frank. Right now, I can't stand that city. Its uptight faux-classical architecture doesn't jibe with the southern/eastern seaboard heat. It's sticky and humid and feels like a swamp. I never liked it that much to begin with, but thanks to the hateful policies being generated by the current administration, it's like the alligators are in charge of the swamp. Animal Swamp? Maybe. So I try and counter my ever-simmering anger with positive thoughts, so I'm not walking around in a constant state of rage. And I try and find beauty where I can, even if it's in an oligarchical cesspool. With that, behold! The absolutely ginormous Southern magnolia. This thing was roughly the size of a salad plate (or a dinner plate, if you have 1950s-era tableware) and it was, in a word, and despite being in that festering cloaca of a city, glorious. I am trying to light the candle.