Inauguration

After a few different attempts at attending the inauguration, all of which fell through, I had resigned myself to a distant—and convenient—viewing of the ceremony from New York. Matt was going with a group of kids and parents form the school he teaches at, P.S. 190, and was trying at the last minute to get me on one of the buses. Late Monday night, I had given up all hope and was lounging around in my pajamas when I got a call from Matt. “Be here in ten minutes, girl” he said. We were going to the inauguration!

We left PS 190 around midnight. Luckily, I was on the teacher’s bus and was therefore spared the shouting, complaining, and general juvenility I’d expected from my busmates. Being, like many folks, a person who finds it very difficult to sleep while upright, I considered the two or three hours I got on the way down a success. We arrived in DC around 6:30am, parked in the lot behind RFK stadium, and began our trek towards the capitol. Everyone was in good spirits as we made our way west on
East Capitol street; we were gaining ground on history.

I knew there would be a lot of people at the inauguration. Like, duh. I thought I knew what a lot of people looked like. I’ve been to baseball games and sold-out concerts. I live in New York City, for goodness sake. But friends, the truth is this: I do not know how to explain to you how many people were there. Wide open city streets were clogged with people and more people. Behind me were people. In front of me were people. Stepping on my feet and breathing in my face were people. “Inching along” seems to imply too rapid a pace to describe how fast we were moving. You get the idea.
Several hours after leaving the bus, we were in relatively direct sight of a jumbotron (Matt calls them megatrons; isn’t that cute?) near the Washington monument. I would like to mention again that there were many, many people in attendance. There was nothing to do but stand unnaturally erect, avoid bending any limbs, and wait for the big event.

Once the ceremony started, the inauguration was pretty fun. We could see and hear the going-on pretty well from where we stood, which is really all you can ask for when you’re a mile away from the actual event. The crowd was disproportionately cheerful considering the extreme hassle each one of us was experiencing. My fellow attendees and I kept ourselves entertained by identifying celebrities we recognized (Dustin Hoffman was there, and John Cusack, and, of course, Beyonce) and groaning in envy anytime the audience was instructed to “please be seated.”

When it came time for the main event, I was cold and sleepy and tired, but even gladder to be there than I had expected to be. My heart soared as Diane Feinstein introduced the President-elect and spoke to the magnitude of the event. Then, Joe Biden was our new Vice President, and then Barack Obama was our new president. President Barack Obama. George W. Bush was not the president anymore. At the risk of overstating the effect this transition will have on my privileged white-girl life; I felt a very palpable sense of relief after the ceremony. We were all simply in better hands now, and I and everyone around me could feel that viscerally. I thought the new President’s inaugural address was fantastic. It had been eight years since I’d felt good about anything that came out of my President’s mouth. I reveled in a sense of communal triumph and happiness with the two million other people who had weathered the traffic, cold and crowds to celebrate this event that was nothing less than a victory for all of us.

So then it was over, and we began the long journey back to the bus that would take us back to New York. The ride home was long and uncomfortable. I was somehow too tired to sleep, the temperature was approximately six hundred degrees, and somebody was playing The Fast and the Furious 3 on the bus’ DVD player. It took seven hours to get home and everyone had to work the next day. I was a little crabby.

Since my return, several people have asked me if going to the inauguration was worth it. And, you know, given that I experienced about 24 hours of profound discomfort for the sake of an hour or so of uncomfortable excitement, part of me is inclined to say that it wasn’t worth it. But I don’t think you can really evaluate an experience like that as a sum of its parts. I will forever be able to say that I was there, and for me, being able to say that is valuable currency that decidedly outweighs one inconvenient day in my life of many days.

As I’ve been saying to friends and family: I’m so glad I went, and I’m so glad I’m back.