My neighbor wrote this Sunday night after the Inauguration Concert and sent it to just one friend and me. I called her to find her crying. I thought it was beautiful and should be shared.
INAUGURATION CONCERT
I watched this tonight curled up in my waterbed with the me I was forty years ago and some of the people I loved then. Fresh eyes seem necessary to a full grokking of the moment. What would it have been like to stand at twenty seeing the world of sixty, hearing all the talk of justice and the power of the people at an official government event? To hear familiar music, in some cases sung by familiar people, albeit a whole lot older? To see a clip of Marion Anderson? How would the me of 1967 react to the camera pan of the beauteous young black man who has been elected to lead the nation?
Just as I was wondering if glimpsing this from there, as in a crystal ball, would have been seen as winning, Pete Seeger and the gang hit that verse in This Land Is Your Land that went, I saw a sign there and that sign said Private Property, but on the back it didn’t say nothin’. That side was made for you and me. After all these years of asking myself what the hell happened, of not being able to comprehend how we got from there to here, of totally giving up the ideals of my youth, of being certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that we’d lost, I was struck that I was actually hearing socialism celebrated at an inauguration of a president of the United States! Unintentional? Maybe; but there nonetheless. Or maybe it was intentional--the left sending a grin and a wave to Rick Warren over on the other side of Barack’s tent. I can almost guarantee that’s how ole Pete saw it. He knew what he was singing about.
Earlier in the week I’d asked my aunt if she was feeling better about O’Bama. No, she said and launched into a diatribe on how much the inauguration was costing and what a waste of money it was and on and on. I have to admit, there was a part of me that could see what she saw. Hard times do constellate a distaste of excess, and that’s pretty much how past inaugurals have seemed.
Now I see it differently. What I looked out upon tonight was magic. I saw a new generation having its Woodstock. Although the politics were different, the vision and heart that drove it seemed the same vision and heart my generation began with back in the civil rights and early student movements. I'd not expected to encounter that again. Especially not on such a scale. Tonight seemed a massive ritual cleansing of a people who exorcised the past in a joyous raising of energy that, in turn, was fed to the young black man with the immense responsibility. During You'll Never Walk Alone I found myself wondering how many times portions of tonight’s event will touch and sustain him as he struggles for the right decision in the days to come.
When Michelle O’Bama made that comment about finally being proud of her country, I totally understood. My simple childhood patriotism was sullied by seeing "colored" kids attacked with dogs and fire hoses and learning how it really was with the Indians. My leftist youth led me to confront the deep shadow this nation has projected. The greed and arrogance and hypocrisy that has seemed its hallmark for so long made my relationship with America a complicated affair. Lately, all I’ve seen was prestidigitation—the right hand squawking about freedom, while the left hand took it away, pocketing the change in the process, and no one seeming particularly outraged. Those things had come to define my country inside me.
It's been so dark, so ugly, and it's been that way for so long. Tonight stands a testament to the possibility of the impossible.
It’s corny. My lefty self is having a quiet conniption in the corner. And it may just be for this small flicker of time—but right now—in this moment—it feels good to be able to love America, feels good to think perhaps this, rather than that other, is the true fruit of the seeds our youth so fervently planted all those years ago.
What an amazing ride!
Love,
J
My neighbor is older and I have not experienced all that she has but I know that each of us are moved in many different ways. Yet we are all hopeful for the same bright future......