Well, that was truly an incredible experience....
We and the sea of people around us, having waited in line since 6am and having made slow marches from many blocks away and through security, were all cold down to our bones from the frigid temperatures that dipped down into the low teens with windchill. "Huddled masses" in the truest sense of the saying, yearning to stay warm....
By 9am, the sun broke from above the upper parapets of the capital building and through the dissolving clouds. It was like a blessed and God-answered warm blanket placed onto us and the mood brightened considerably. Spontaneous chants of "OBAMA, OBAMA!" broke out here and there as our blood circulation regained its force in anticipation of history.
We were seated perhaps only 200 feet from the podium where Barack Obama would take his oath to lead the United States. We could see each person of importance who was announced as they came through the grand entrance and onto the inaugural platform. But perhaps the most amazing sight was to look back behind us and down the capitol mall and see the endless river of humanity in the distance.... the waves of movements... and the distant echoes of cheers, applause and roars that permeated the air before, during, and after his speech. It was like rolling thunder. It was incredible.
There is a sense of optimism here, despite all the challenges facing our country. There is a sense of friendliness, kindness and openness among people of many races all around us. There were many brown-skinned faces with tears of joy streaming down. There were many age-old men and women with hunched-backs, supported by canes and walkers, having endured childhoods in segregation and discrimination who seemed to be urging the very last physical resources they had to find their way into the view of this moment.
I patted one man on the back as he walked by crying, and he looked at me with a broad grin as if he had just witnessed the birth of his new child. I smiled back at him... no words were necessary. In the distance, a woman held up a sign, "We have overcome..."
I think i understand a little more about this country i live in after this experience.
Just another proud American:
Alicia Keys is even more beautiful in person:
The exact moment America began a new era: