First, A Disclaimer: I don't know that I can describe the spirit of Inauguration day because
I've never been in the midst of 2 million people simultaneously
celebrating the same thing before. Nor had anyone else. It was new, new
new. But I feel like I have to try, because it was remarkable, and it
was a privilege, and I feel duty-bound to share it. And of course I
want to remember it forever. I've written this very hurriedly, just to get my thoughts down, and it
doubtlessly is filled with typos and does little to truly describe the
day. At some point I'd love to write a detailed memoir of the day and the week, but until then this will have to do. But hopefully it captures in some small way what happened, and if
enough others can also describe small scenes, together we may be able
to tell the entire story.
In August, Harper and I booked a flight and a hotel room in Washington DC to see the inauguration of a new American President. One that we hoped would be Barack Obama. In December, we found out that we had won the lottery, so to speak, and gotten tickets to see the swearing in via our congressional representative, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We went to the concert on the Mall and the Western States Ball. We met with friends old and new. We went to parties and visited monuments. But it was the inauguration that we came for, and that's what I want to try to describe.
January 20th began for Harper and me at 5 am. We awoke, dressed in layer upon later of polypropylene and wool, and ate a little breakfast of bananas, babka, and tea. By 5:45 or so we were out the door, and walked three blocks to the Foggy Bottom Metro station. Surprisingly, there were very few people waiting for the train.
The first train was packed, but not unreasonably so. I've ridden MUNI buses and trains that were far worse. Yet there were obviously difficulties on the line, and it took us nearly 20 minutes to go one stop. With our Winter clothes on, we were hot to the point of exhaustion. So we got out, and began the trek across the city.
Because the Mall was closed, and our ticketed entrance was on the Southern side of the Capital at 3rd and D streets, we had to walk East. There were people everywhere, moving moving moving. At first, the throngs were headed in the opposite direction, going towards the parade route. I have no idea how many people we passed; I could not even guess. But it was certainly in the many tens of thousands. We walked and walked and walked, heading South and East. As we came nearer to the Mall, we again encountered the teeming multitudes, waiting at barricades to get in. Never before have I seen so many people in motion. It was a Faulknerian exodus through the streets of our nation's capital.
And the soldiers. Everywhere soldiers and police and security. They were courteous and knowledgeable. Again and again they directed us where we needed to go. There were even postal workers out helping people get where they needed to go. And the vendors. At nearly half-block intervals were vendors with buttons and hats and flags.
And by God it was American. It was the most American thing I've ever seen.
When we got to First street, we turned South and headed for the capital. The streets were a chaos of ticket-holders and confusion. I did notice that the purple ticket-holders line looked exceptionally long. I did not know, however, that it was such a disaster.
Not knowing where to go, we wandered in circles for a bit, looking for a tunnel that would take us beneath the capital building. We eventually found it, the third street tunnel, and began walking South through it with a teeming group of flag waving people. It was odd and surreal, being underground in a traffic tunnel with all these people. And more than a little scary. I worried about a bomb going off (there had been no screening) or people being trampled in a panic. I cannot imagine being one of the purple ticket-holders who were stuck in the adjacent tunnels for four hours. Horrifying.
We cam out on the South side, and again wandered around for bit before we found the Silver Gate. (Well, the sign for it, which we assumed was the gate.) A line snaked away from it, and after following it for three blocks, we came to the end.
We waited a little more than three hours in the line. Well, not a line, exactly. It began as a line, but as soon as it began to move it became just a throng of people, all moving slowly in the same direction. A tightly packed pedestrian Tetris shuffling along not knowing where we were going or how far to the gate or if we would even get there in time. We had no one to tell us where to go, or how much father to the gate that would let us onto the mall. We weren't even sure we would be able to get to the mall. And because there were so many people packed into the Mall area, cell service was completely down. By 8:15 or so, I couldn't do anything with the Internet, nor was I receiving text messages. (Though I was sending them out, to individuals and Twitter.) So there was no way of knowing what was happening. Yet people were overwhelmingly patient, polite, and respectful. There was a sense that we were all in it together.
And we are.
At 11:30, we finally came to the front of the throng, passed a bottle neck, and were suddenly at the security gates. And then we were in. It was a gorgeous day. Sure it was cold, but it was brilliantly sunny. The air was crisp. To breathe it in felt like a baptism.
We arrived just as dignitaries were coming in and being introduced. When the old guard came out--Dick Cheney looking every bit the part of a Bond villain and Bush looking old and defeated--there was booing. I didn't like the booing. I understand it, but it felt counter to what Obama himself is all about. The man is down already. We have won. Why kick him? But hearing a million people boo all at once--even though I found it distasteful--was remarkable. It was cathartic.
But mostly it was about celebration, not vindication. Each time the Jumbotrons showed the presidential motorcade, a great cry would go up from the crowd. And when the President-elect emerged upon the stage, my God, it was a roar.
And then there he was standing before our Chief Justice and taking the oath. And all at once he became the most powerful man in the world. For the first time the leader of the Western World, the Free World, the Entire World is a black man. A new President. A new day. The old order rent asunder.
I'm a creature of the iPhone and the digital camera and the endless distraction of technology. But when President Obama gave his address I stood rapt. I wanted to remember it always. It was both a repudiation of these last 16 years (some have mistakenly said eight, but I felt his call to transcend partisanship extended beyond the Bush years) and a call to action. It was a warning and an encouragement to stand together and move on. It was patriotic, yet in no way jingoistic. I became quite emotional but remained dry eyed. Many around me did not.
The hardest moment for me to remain composed was during Lowery's benediction. As he spoke, an older African American gentleman stood beside me, repeating "Amen" over and over. He was certainly old enough to have suffered institutionalized, government-prescribed, racism first hand. Seeing the old pastor onstage reflected by the old man in the audience moved me to no end. I will never forget those Amens.
And it ended with a celebration. There was dancing and flag waving and singing. And joy. So much joy.
Strangers hugging strangers and dancing together in a new world. Much of this, certainly, was simply relief that the long catastrophic Bush era that has done so much grievous harm to our nation--at home and abroad--is over. But I think even moreso it was a celebration of this man, and of of us as a people. A people who finally, finally, finally got it together.
I felt I was in a post-racial world. A post-partisan world. A post-ideologue world.
Rush Limbaugh and his ilk had been left behind. Of course, there will always be differences of opinions. There will always be conservative ideologies. But Limbaugh and the Gingrich school that came to power fifteen years ago are a relic. The meanness. The vitriol. The tear-down, knives-out culture. My God. Does anyone want that culture to survive, other than those who were brought to power by it? That band of self-serving partisans have nearly destroyed our nation; convincing good people to put party ahead of country. But good people have wised up. And those who don't realize the ground has shifted are doomed to irrelevance. So be it.
For 36 years I have lived in an age defined by baby boomers and older generations endlessly re-fighting the battles of the 1960s. it sometimes seems no matter what the issue, the arguments are really about Vietnam. They are really about the Civil Rights Movement and the Free Speech Movement and Watergate. They are really about which side of the line you decided to be on some 40 years ago. They are about old bitternesses and grudges that have naught to do with me. It's led to nothing but gridlock and anger. Nothing gets accomplished. These partisans have failed us all, and themselves even moreso. The governance and politics of our nation should not be conducted as if it were a team sport in a zero sum gam.
Barack Obama is a GenXer. Or at least he's close to being one. (For those on the generational borderline, your acceptance or rejection of hip hop defines where you fall.) And his most ardent supporters are certainly genXers and Millennials. These are not our fights, and we can recognize a proxy war when we see it. It's a new day, a new era. It's time for rationality to prevail over dogma. It's time to leave the past behind. It's time to get things done.
And I think the overwhelming sense on the Mall that day, indeed throughout the city, was that we had left that old era behind. We wanted to be at peace with one another. We wanted to be brothers and sisters, and we were. We can be conservatives, or liberals, or moderates. Black or white or Asian or multiethnic or native American or gay or straight or Southern or Western or anything; anything at all.
But we can't be enemies. We just can't be enemies anymore.
I got the sense again and again from everyone I spoke to that day that we just wanted to share in this experience. We wanted to be in it together. We wanted to be a community. We wanted to talk to each other; for in conversation there is some sort of proof of conviction. We wanted to shake hands and look into each others eyes and say it's time to move on. To say, I'm sorry for the past; let's work together to fix the future. We wanted to say by God you're human and I'm human. To say we're all Americans and we're all in this together.
Barack Obama is the personification of our second chance as a nation. Let's make it work this time.
