Inauguration Day 2009

The office didn't close down, I didn't have (or take) the day off--too much to do before week's end. But, as with most days either of communal or personal importance, we were allowed to take whatever time we wanted to go to DC or watch the Inauguration from home and make up the hours later . . . 9to5 only exists here as a convenience to our clients.

So I watched today's "historic moment" unfold on the tube with friends rather than fight the chill and crowds on The Mall. Rowdy commentary on the color coordination of scarves and ties between various couples/groups, "walking old" and penguin jokes, who held hands and who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else but There. Retelling of history and bios while waiting for something to start. Watching the men and women who led us, for good or ill, to this moment as they strolled across the screen. And although I am not a fan of W and have looked forward to his final day as our country's leader, I was embarrassed for him when the crowd started singing Hey, Hey (Goodbye). "Better to have been silent," my grandparents might have said.

I haven't been a political person--better to hear no promises than to hear them and be disappointed when they're not kept--but the state of our Union has disintegrated so much in my lifetime that it seems impossible, impractical, and grossly negligent to disregard it so completely now. I've never held any hope for a better America than what I've experienced in my own life; it was futile to expect more from a society that seemed, in part, to want to hold itself hostage to the mistakes, grievances, and status quo of our past rather than move forward toward a unified kinship and away from whatever problems plagued us.

Today I hope change really is here. I hope that it will last and allow us to be better than we have been. I hope that people of all color can finally be colorblind and stop using the mistakes of the past as a way to keep hatred and distrust alive. I hope that greed and power obtained through loss and detriment to others is held accountable so that trust in one another can be restored, and so that benefit to some can truly be a means to benefit others. I hope that religious dogma can no longer be used to determine what legal rights a person can have. I hope that people of any faith and people of no faith can learn tolerance for each other, regardless of belief.

I hope that hope isn't short-lived.