Inauguration Day

I am still reeling from our experience on Tuesday in DC at the inauguration. It is something I will never forget and am so thankful that we were there to witness this monumental and historical day. Our day began at 4:00 AM and we arrived home finally (after missing our train and being re-routed to another station) at 7:00 PM. When we arrived in DC we were told that the entire mall was full and we wouldn't be able to get a spot to even see a jumbo-tron of the swearing in ceremony. We decided to walk to the end of the mall (opposite the end where the Capitol Building is located). After speed walking 26 blocks in mid-20 degree weather we were elated to discover there were plenty of spots still near a jumbo-tron by the Washington Memorial. Then we stood for almost three hours waiting for the festivities to begin. Never before have I encountered such kindness from strangers and a sense of unity amongst a crowd of a million plus. Everyone had a story and was eager to tell where they were from or how excited they were about the day. We stood next to a mother and her teenage son from Florida who knew the names of every major political figure. We stood near college students who were eager to share their opinions of the wrongdoings of the former administration and a group of middle aged friends behind us who expressed that now they have a newfound hope for employment despite encountering joblessness during these trying economic times. The heightened energy and sense of communal spirit was palpable and difficult to effectively articulate. Everyone's spirits were high and people were eager to help one another. This was demonstrated when a mother lost her 9 year old daughter for about a half hour and the crowd just spontaneously began chanting the child's name over and over again in an effort to locate her. Thankfully the child was found and a cheer erupted from the crowd when she was reunited with her mother. There was a feeling of joy that permeated the crowd. Even the secret service, police, and volunteers were all extrmemly friendly and helpful. One of the most poignant images for me of the day was when I say an elderly African American woman who was bundled up in a bright blue sleeping bag sitting in her wheelchair and being pushed by another African American woman. She resembled a glow worm all covered up so that all you could see was half of her face. I thought to myself how determined she must have been to be apart of this day and imagined her saying how she had waited her whole life for this and wasn't going to miss it for the world. It was surprising that even amidst traffic jams, streets being closed off, and bottlenecks of people that weren't moving, everyone remained calm. When we exited the mall we were elbow to elbow within a mass of thousands of people and moved less than a couple blocks in over an hour. People were cold, restless, and tired from the day and yet everyone remained calm and cooperative. I had this sense that if we could just capture and sustain this sense of shared purpose, this eagerness to serve, and concern for the common good then change might really be realized after all.