WATCHING HISTORY HAPPEN.
I'm in there. Stripey hat with a pompom or three, because when I am cold I turn into a five-year-old. That tuft of pink fuzz in the immediate foreground may or may not be a part one of the hats in my party of friends, actually ...I've found the experience more difficult to talk about than I anticipated. It's not that I was any more or less moved or ecstatic than I assumed I would be, but I also haven't really figured out how to put into words how happy I was just to have been there, despite the fact that I was really just watching it all go down on a giant tv surrounded by millions of people -- so really, I saw it happen basically the same way everyone did with a slightly (majorly) larger group. So each time someone has asked, "how WAS it?!" I've felt pretty generic in my gushing, "Amazing! Inspiring! Just ... something I'll never get to do again, that I'm so glad I decided to do..."
But it's true. The enormity and importance of the moment felt magnified. The woman standing behind me cried the entire time, all the while with a huge smile on her face. TWO, count 'em, of my male friends teared up during Aretha Franklin's staggering performance (I adored the hat, btw), and I found no time to cry because I was so busy jumping up and down in utter excitement with the French Canadian guy (shout out, Jen!) beside me who kept grabbing my arm and telling me how happy he was for America.
To be with so many people generating such a positive energy and standing in solidarity isn't something I can say I've ever really experienced before, and I think it indicates just how much the tides are about to turn for the better in our country that already the sense of unity among us is stronger than most people I know can remember it ever being.
My favorite part of Obama's speech:
"For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace."
