I have to say, I'm facing the next few years with both hope and dread. I remember the hope I experienced after 9/11--that at least, out of an incredible tragedy, a vast opportunity had arisen. The majority of the world was sudden behind the United States, and how we proceeded could change how we were viewed. Of course, we know what path we chose. Same old, same old America the Imperialist. Oh, and let's throw in torturer, too, just to push the envelope.
Yesterday, the vp pinged me and said "are you watching the Inauguration? You can if you want to, you know" so I winged over to CNN.com and got in the queue. Ten minutes later, I was watching Obama sworn in, and then the festivities throughout the day and night (while working, I will add). I tuned in with a "well, yeah, this is something I OUGHT to watch"--something like going to the dentist--but found myself checking back at the open screen throughout the day, right up until bedtime.
I was not embarrassed. It was like being cleansed of a disease I didn't know I had had. Even when they muffed the swearing-in, I was thinking "Ah, that's a bummer, they are going to remember THAT flub forever!" The poet I thought could have worked a bit on cadence. But I was not constantly dealing with twinges of "oh my god, did he/she really say that?" or switching off the sound in mortification. It was like watching an average person speak. And Michelle Obama, ah! She was NORMAL. She did not stand like a china doll next to her man. How did she do that? What is the difference? What about her made them look like a couple (a family?) rather than a man with a family in the shadows. Might it be her attitude toward the people watching her? Her attitude toward life? Who knows.
Anyway, my dread arises from how it might all fall, as my hope fell after 9/11. Perhaps this administration will fall victim to the same hubris and corruption that they all seem to fall victim to. Clinton has his intern, Bush his war...all humans have their weakness. I can only hope that Obama's is something merely mortal that won't cripple a country.
I wish them the very best. I look around me and think "How can I participate in all this hope, to keep it alive, to keep it going?"
3 comments:
Obama's flaw: he's a smoker. I'm hoping that, in eight years when he leaves office, that's *still* his biggest flaw.
If that's his biggest flaw, let's hope he quits and achieves the impossible: Perfection. :)
Lovin' your blog, baby, lovin' it.
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