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The writer and her husband, Steven, huddle for warmth in the Orange Standing section. The large media tower to the left of the trees blocks any direct view of the ceremonies. |
CommentsA Pilgrim Among Many
One writer's experience at Inauguration 2009
By Melissa SiigPublished: February 13, 2009
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It was like going to a rock concert. Everywhere you looked, there were miles and miles of people walking, all headed to see the same show – Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. I half expected to hear that U2 was playing the opening act.
Like any big concert, the same excitement and unity of purpose energized the air, but there was something more. People were braving freezing temperatures (by noon it was only 16 degrees out) and long lines and crowds and more lines and crowds for a chance to be a part of something – a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see history be made, to bid good riddance to eight-years of an incompetent, embarrassing administration and to usher in the era of what we all hoped would return our country to its rightful place as a symbol of all that is good and free.
It was the largest gathering in the history of the U.S., and I was right smack-dab in the middle of it. Or rather, up front and to the right, next to the large media tower that blocked anyone with an Orange Standing ticket from seeing the ceremonies. But at least I had an Orange ticket. Later, we would hear from our poor, Purple Ticket-holding friends and various people we met about the horrors of the Purple and Blue Gates – how some people waited in line for hours only to be turned away at the gate or got stuck in the now infamous Purple Tunnel of Doom (survivors of the incident have their own Facebook page).
By comparison, the Orange line was neat and orderly. A single cop had organized a line that circled around itself several times before twisting and turning in a kind of maze that finally spilled out at security. We talked to the policeman, who seemed quite in awe that his “masterpiece” was actually working. I liked that he took the initiative and was thinking outside of the box, and that the people in the Orange line seemed willing to work together with little complaint. It seemed a fitting metaphor for the Obama administration.
Two freezing hours later, we had made it through the gate and were on the Capitol grounds. We had an hour to go before the ceremony began. Despite the chilly air and throngs of people, everyone around us seemed in high spirits. We quickly made friends with our neighbors. There was an editor of a small paper in North Carolina who scored an Orange ticket from his Republican Congressman, Walter Jones, who is famous for leading the campaign to change the name of French fries to “freedom fries” after the start of the Iraq War. Apparently, Jones did not wish to attend the inauguration. (Maybe he was boycotting Obama’s possible canine selection – a Labradoodle. It’s part French poodle, after all.) We also met a writer from Chicago whose website tells of his biggest fear – the assassination of Obama before he was even sworn in.
But at that moment, at 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 20, we did not speak of those things, though it may have been on everyone’s mind. What was in the air was something electric, a feeling of anticipation unlike anything I have felt before. It was the eagerness for change, the hope that this man could lift the black cloud we had been living under, that he could make things right again.
If the faith of the crowd in Obama was palpable, so was the anger toward Bush and Cheney. When either of them appeared on the JumboTron, boos would erupt from the back of the mall (where the ticketless masses gathered) and spread to the front (where the ticketed elite stood), a true popular uprising. At one point, the Mall even broke into the chant, “Hey, hey Good-bye.” And when Bush boarded the Marine helicopter that would take him back to Texas, a huge cheer rose up from the crowd. A woman we met at the airport described the Purple section as “a forest of one-fingered salutes” as Bush’s helicopter flew overhead.
But the sweetest moment of the entire ceremony was not Bush’s long-awaited departure, or the look of pure joy on cellist Yo-Yo Ma’s face as he played his heart out (all right, it was pre-recorded, but I can’t blame the Quartet – it was so cold out there my instruments were freezing), or Pastor Rick Warren’s call for unity and gratitude for Obama’s election to the presidency. It was the 35-word Presidential Oath of Office, Chief Justice John Robert’s flub and all. When the swearing in was over and Roberts said, “Congratulations, Mr. President” and shook Obama’s hand, my eyes flooded with tears and my heart soared with pride. Everyone shouted and screamed with joy and hugged their neighbor, whether they were black or white or yellow, it didn’t matter. We were all in this together, we had survived eight years of ineptitude and secrecy and a trampling of our Constitution and now – we hoped, we prayed – it would all be better.
After the ceremony, as 2 million people poured off the Mall, I had a realization. It wasn’t a rock concert we had just participated in, but a pilgrimage. Millions of people from around the country and even the world had come to Washington, D.C. on this day to bow to the shrine of Democracy, and to a system that could elect an African-American president only 50 years after the end of the Civil Rights Movement. The Bush Administration had shaken the pillars of our democracy, but it had survived nonetheless. It is now Obama’s job, and ours, to build it back up.
~ Discuss this article with the author. Email melissa@moonshineink.com.
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