Alice Lynn

January, 2009

Words can never fully capture the emotions from witnessing the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama; pictures seem flat without the depth or expanse of dimension shown, and without the sounds of voices echoing joy and jubilance. But on the cold, crisp, sunny morning of January 20th, my children and I were witness to an historic event, that still leaves me reeling from emotion.

The stories begin on Monday, as my son and I walked from our hotel first to the Hart Senate Building, standing for over two hours with thousands of others in a security line to pick up our Inaugural tickets from Senator Boxer's office, and then to the Congressional Office Building and Congressman Waxman's office for additional tickets. Everywhere one looked, and with each smiling face, there was an interconnectedness amongst us. Strangers spoke, new friendships made, and hugs were freely given. All of us seemed to be experiencing a new depth to us, a new connectedness that is uncommon in our lives; we were all celebrating together, and the feelings emanating from these human connections were astounding.

Monday night over dinner, with fellow Palisades friends, Gail Wirth and her daughter, Hannah, we shared experiences. Earlier, Gail had met Jesse Jackson as he was leaving our hotel and ironically, sitting next to us, was Jackson's son, Jonathan, and his friends. A spirited conversation developed amongst the eight of us, and when Jonathan learned I was a therapist, we spoke for some time on the changing black family and the dynamics he witnesses amongst his friends, all successful in business but often feeling less sure in their parenting and marital roles.

How does one capture the enormity of emotion experienced by being part of this extraordinary event? Perhaps it is best told in the vignettes of stories, of lives touched that so moved me and my family beginning at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning as we left the hotel to walk the mile and a half to our Blue Gate entrance, joining thousands of people leaving the Metro and chanting, screaming, Obama, Obama, with a huge chorus of joy.

• There was the white judge, a Republican, who drove from North Carolina with his two teenage children, who never had voted for a Democrat, and who spoke of how moved he was by Obama and his message of hope.
• There was the African American foreign service officer from Maryland who spoke of his difficult time in foreign countries as diverse as Turkey and China and Morocco and how tarnished our reputation has become. He spoke to the enormous hope that America would once again regain our world standing.
• There was the white owner of an office furniture store, the campaign director from North Dakota, who spoke of meeting Obama and how they talked for over twenty minutes on being parents, and his warm impression of the man, of his poise and genuineness, who is our President.
• There was the African American family from Colorado who brought their two school age boys to see the first Black President inaugurated so they could someday tell their children they were witness to this historic event.
• There was the young hearing impaired white woman, a recent graduate of Gallaudet University in DC, experiencing her first involvement in politics working on Obama's campaign, who with her Latina friend, a recent Stanford grad, were overjoyed at being able to attend the Inauguration.
• There was the 92 year old African American woman from Missouri, who with tears in her eyes, said in response to my question, "No, never in my lifetime did I expect to see a black man become President."
• There was the hearing impaired white couple signing with enthusiasm and smiles.
• There was seeing the T-shirt on an African American man in his 50's that read "My President Looks Like Me."

We walked, we waited, for hours in the biting cold, with thousands of others, and there was not once an incidence of unruly behavior or negativity. People of all complexions and nationalities, the able and disabled, with walkers and wheelchairs, the very young to the notably old--all Americans were represented and we all felt the enormity of the experience of coming together.

When my son and I arrived at our standing position in front and to he right of the Capitol, we looked back over the Mall and could barely take in the emotion of seeing thousands and thousands of faces stretching beyond the Mall and the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. My daughter and her husband were standing just behind the reflecting pool and had even a greater perspective of the multitudes.

No one else, my son observed, could have or has impacted and energized and excited our country and the world in so profound a way as Barack Obama, simply by his rhetoric and inspiration.

My daughter reflected on the enormity of change in feelings between the races; having lived in DC with her husband for 10 years; she said the anger often seen was clearly absent, replaced by a reconciliation between the races.

One felt so keenly that all of America and the world were watching the Inauguration of our first African American President. And when the roar from the crowd of millions rose and held in the air after President Obama had taken the oath of office, we, as Americans, were profoundly moved. It is a sound that still reverberates and resonates within me.

That evening, we joined with many others at the Health for All Blue Diamond Ball, in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where Jackson Browne and Graham Nash entertained, and Representatives Conyers, Kucinich and Hall spoke. We listened joyously, particularly when Browne performed, "I am a Patriot". Standing with my children and son in law and friends, hearing the words resound through this grand hall, on this momentous night, was chilling.

As a young girl, a daughter of an Armenian immigrant, I remember keenly the road trip my family took in the summer of 1951. We were driving though the South. I had seen the "whites only" signs, the difference in outdoor movie theaters and the homes distinctly differentiated by race. But when we stopped at a Foster Freeze one hot summer day, and I went to the side of the building for water, and saw the two fountains, I ran back to my mother with great excitement to announce, "They have colored water!" It was then that the full impact of racial division hit me. It is an experience that has never left.

Seeing America, and the world come together to embrace our new President, a man of color, was so deeply and profoundly moving. It stirred these emotions from my past, and now gives me great hope, that reparations can begin. This was an historical event that touched us all; for me it was a profound life altering experience in seeing all people, of all colors, for this moment in time, leave behind our differences. May we all work to keep this hope alive.