Another painting in our apartment is called Convergence by Jackson Pollock. Pollock, an artist that mastered the technique of splattering paint across a canvas, almost makes viewers dizzy with the array of paint that is dripped, splashed, and sloshed around in this masterpiece. I know that it even feels dizzy making this type of art, as my mother, cousin, and I made some of these types of “drip paintings” as they are called, before I went to high school.

Using simple, monotone, primary colors of white, black, red, yellow, and blue for his palette, Pollock throws the paint at the canvas, creating a “convergence” of vivid, vibrant colors that have been suddenly strewn together into lines that are hair thin, that are thick, and that are every shape and size in between.

With this unique method of assembling paint on a canvas, diversity is created. And as I leave the capital of my country, I cannot disconnect an apparent connection between Convergence and the capital.

You see, Convergence is full of diversity. Pollock’s painting is full of different colors, different shapes, and difference sizes, that join together to form a culmination of variation.

Likewise, our country is full of diversity. The United States of America is full of different beliefs, different ideas, and different people, and the capital is one of the places where these beliefs, ideas, and people come together.

And as I fly out of DCA, with my nose pressed against the small window, I notice all of the roads and highways that stretch out like arteries from the heart of our state, Washington, D.C. Opinions, thoughts, and persons are pumped into the capital as much as they are pumped out of the capital.

And as I fly out of DCA, I think of how I was pumped into the capital for the summer through the Valparaiso University Institute for Leadership and Service Calling and Purpose in Society Fellowship program. I thank them for giving me this gift of continuing my experience in our country’s capital as well as living in an apartment complex in Rosslyn which my family and I drove past four years ago, by mistake, not at all knowing then that I would be back there, not by mistake, ending up as an intern in the office of one of Indiana’s United States Senators and as a CAPS fellow at a public affairs and government relations firm.

I remember our CAPS orientation day in May, and I remember our discussion with the Director of the Institute for Leadership and Service, Dr. Elizabeth Lynn. We read a short story from Pablo Neruda, which is also in the book that the Institute gave to us, The Impossible Will Take A Little While: perseverance and hope in troubled times, which I read in its entirety, although it was not required. On page 168, Pablo Neruda sees “…that all of humanity is somehow together.” Elsewhere in the book, the theme of unity is clear; “The planet is in fact one interwoven web of life,” (141).

And as I fly out of DCA, I think of how I am being pumped out of the capital, into the wider world of human beings whose lives are inextricably intertwined with ours, and into the wider world that is much more like Pollock’s painting of convergence than some seem to realize.

Read more about Alex Uryga on his website, www.alexuryga.com.