So yesterday was something of a momentous day around here.
I've been watching the tsunami of gemutlichkeit from my place back here and smiling to myself. There is a sense of catharsis in this inauguration that I don't ever recall and no one can honestly say has ever occurred within the realm of recorded media.
It seems that we have been searching for a very long time for something to justify our continued claims that we are the land of the free, the home of the brave, and a place where even the lowliest of us can rise above his conditions to become something great. We have not had reason to even mutter these assertions under our breath given the conditions we find our country in today. But yesterday we saw in the flesh that our deepest ingrained beliefs, our identity as a nation, wasn't just wasted sound and motion.
I imagine the moment must have been nearly crushing. I also imagine that the love the crowd showed, the joy of the nation, kept this at bay. It buoyed the day and our spirits. For the most part. I saw a few trolls working the internet for scraps, desperately screaming about small things like flubbed lines for want of something, anything, to re-sow the seeds of discontent on which they feed and grow.
Fuck them. With a baseball bat. Because yesterday was OUR day. And a man who became a symbol just by being who he was took the oath of office, said what he meant to say, was honest about it, then went inside and got to work.
And I cried a little.
It is still amazing to me the overall appeal this man has for the masses. He is intelligent, but still common. I hadn't really grasped how accessible his image was until we were watching a recap of the inauguration last night. The doorbell wrang, and the man who'd brought us our Chinese food smiled as we bundled it in to the hallway quickly so he didn't have to stand out in the cold. He looked over my shoulder at the screen and his face suddenly lit up. He pointed at it and exclaimed happily "Obama!"
We grimmed. He grinned. Then he tucked away his tip and waved goodbye.
Bob and I laughed over it, but it really struck home with me. It is as if the zeitgeist formed this man from whole cloth, dropped him on our doorstep when we needed him, and we ushered him in to position as fast as we could at the very moment he signalled he was ready. Synchronicity kicked in to overdrive on this.
I think I'll stay back here and watch the crowds and their elation. The man has enough weight with others expectations on it without me trying to add my own (although I already have several, I will admit). I want to see how he does his thing and walks his walk. From what I have observed, now that the pressure of Projecting The Perfect Image is off of him he has relaxed back in to being himself, and he seems to still know what he is doing. It will be fun to watch and see the real man doing the work now, whatever he manages to pull off.
And while I am almost irritated at myself for having such fanciful and fluffy thoughts, it's nice to be able to for the first time in a while and feel that it might be reciprocated by someone out there.
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