Inauguration Wrap-Up

So now he's president, and together we enter a brave new world.

The inauguration itself was... an experience. I'm definitely glad I went, but I'm in no hurry to do it again (not that the option is there). The area around our assigned security checkpoint had some signage, but not nearly enough. People found out where to go mostly by asking other people waiting in line. There were a few staff people who appeared infrequently, and had nothing but their own voices to try to direct people. After some searching, Rachel and I found our line. It went down one block, turned a corner, down another block, then turned into a tunnel (as in, the type that cars drive through on a normal day). Despite the knowledge that the inauguration crowd would be larger than all but a few U.S. cities, I still didn't quite have the mental capacity to anticipate the length of this line. It spanned the aforementioned two or three city blocks, went into the tunnel, went all the way through the tunnel and then a ways- probably the equivalent of another two city blocks- on the other side. I wasn't bothering to keep track, but we were probably in line for about an hour before we reentered the tunnel, and at least another two inside the tunnel.

It was cold, and it would have been an angry and miserable time had it not been probably the greatest cause for celebration I've ever seen in my lifetime. People were taking any excuse to be happy. At one point, a confusing and unnecessary backward curve developed in the line due to a few people lining up on a ramp leading into the tunnel, and a few more following their lead. Everyone immediately sensed that the curve should not have been created, but it couldn't be undone right away without a few thousand people backing up a few steps. Instead, a man with a deep booming voice (a shrill voiced person tried first, but her words weren't connecting) got everyone behind the part that curved up to wait patiently while the line gradually moved enough so that the people who were ahead of the others in line, but behind them in space to catch up, so that the line straightened out, and the curve, that was making us all anxious (line psychology) was undone. We all cheered. That might not be the normal reaction to getting a line of people slightly more organized, but on that day it was the only reaction anyone thought to have.

People were chanting and singing through the tunnel. At one point a wave went down the line. No one wanted to be in that line in the cold, but it just wasn't a day for being pissed off. That was a good thing, because things would soon get worse. We were in the line that made the news, because after we made it out of the tunnel (getting out of there almost felt like being born), down the block, around the corner... news started to travel that our gate had been closed- there was a problem with the metal detector (there were a few stories floating around, all we knew for sure was that there was an ambiguous security problem). That left several thousand purple ticket holders, many of them campaign staff and volunteers, in a huge cluster, wondering if and how they would get in.

Eventually the next gate over opened up, and everyone who had a purple ticket and a few people who didn't went for that gate. There was some order on the other side of the gate, but none on our side. It was literally a 180 degree crowd all trying to cram into the same small opening. I don't think anyone was trying to push forward, but there was literally constant pressure from the force of the crowd behind me. I was a little scared. It wouldn't take much for someone to get badly hurt or even killed. If someone fell, there wasn't necessarily enough space for people to back off enough for that person to get up. The crowd was getting more restless by the minute, breaking into chants every few minutes. The main ones were "Purple! Purple!" which I was okay with and "Let us in!" which I wasn't. They had a good enough reason to be frustrated, but it's not like the cops and staff managing the bottleneck could have done much more (though on the flipside, they weren't doing much other than looking perturbed and worried).

We made it in minutes before he was sworn in. After 8 years of horror and six hours standing in line, the long wait finally came to an end. People cheered, canons went off, and the Bushes got into a helicopter, and then an airplane that took them to a part of the country where George can leave his house without having to worry about someone kicking him in the balls.

I'm glad I went, but not so much for the swearing-in or even the speech. Years from now I'll proudly tell people that I was there, but the real treat was seeing an entire city so happy. There is no amount of celebration that could be too much for this. It's like the first real day of spring when you step outside and it feels warm and wonderful. After a winter that lasted more or less my entire adult life until Tuesday, this shot of sunshine feels better than the rest, and everyone in that huge crowd felt it.

One more thing: Everyone else has said this already, but I'm going to say it too, because it's important. We didn't deserve or get Obama because we had suffered so much under Bush, we deserved and got him because we worked for it. It happened to take an enormous amount of work but we can already see how worth it it was. I mention this because the things out there worth working for didn't end on November 4th. In fact, they became more available on that day. The sun is shining, and those of us who have spent a lot of this winter in hibernation might take a chance on waking up and taking the plunge into the big and amazing unknown.