2009
Inauguration Day
I'm sitting in my parents' living room, downstairs from my own, watching the inauguration of Barack Obama and watching my daughter drift very slowly towards a nap in her grammy's arms. Even just before the Iowa caucuses, none of this seemed possible. Even right now, it barely seems likely.
...
K is asleep, and Obama has been introduced. Even wide awake she wouldn't remember this; it will be up to J and I, and her grandparents and other elders, to tell her about it. I'm so proud and grateful to have that chance, both to have her to tell, and this moment to tell about.
...
K woke up just in time for the oath, and she stood on my lap for it. She still won't remember it, but now I can tell her she saw it. She was content through almost all of the speech before needing to get back to the important business of learning how to self-locomote.
...
My choices for lines to remember... from Obama:
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals"
and from the poem by Elizabeth Alexander:
"A farmer considers the changing sky/A teacher says, 'Take out your pencils, begin.'"
On Election Night, thinking mostly of over a year and a half of work and 1.3 billion emails and more, I said to J., "It's over". She responded, "No, it's just beginning." Indeed. Let us begin.