I'll talk more about this on release day, but this is Peirce Mill. (Spelling intentional.) Growing up in this area, I had gone by this structure and wondered what it was. I knew there were mills. After all we've got a road named Viers Mill, there's Kemp Mill, there clearly were mills. There's an old saying that gets attributed to various people that when you are ready to learn, a teacher appears. Because often it's easy to be like sure, something mill road. Or sure, there's a historical sign that there used to be a mill here.
This mill is in Rock Creek Park. It's near a stretch where the water is deeper, and a little more serious seeming than some stretches that seem more suited to dunking your toes in. The National Park Service, along with the Friends of Peirce Mill, have kept the mill alive and in tact. It's set up for students to come visit.
Why my sudden interest in mills? Well, some folks and I had talked about writing some fairytale retellings and one of them involves a mill. Of course magical creatures can adapt to a mill free life, I'm sure plenty have. But it turned out, we do have a mill here in DC. I didn't have to plant or revive one, it already was.
In this time when some people think we don't need to keep parks, or historical sites alive, it was a great reminder why these things are useful. Why letting school kids and adults walk through and look at something, and think about the older ways of flour and other milling.
It can be easy as a modern person to wonder why there are so many fairytales about mills. But of course just about every town would have had one. And pounding wheat into flour. There are mills and bakers because those people did their own kind of magic. Transforming plants into food.
Tara Kennedy
Note: If you are reading this outside of your normal work hours, feel free to hold off response until your work hours.
~To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now.
"Hadestown", book and lyrics by Anais Mitchell
