Kitties for Obama and Tears of JoyLast night I think the kitties must have been just as excited as we all were about the election because they would NOT stop running around. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. when I heard Lara get up because of kitty friends running around. They finally quit chasing a bag or running like crazy monkeys down the hall but my brain was completely turned on. I finally go my mind to quiet down and then they decided to play hide-and-seek behind the closet door. Oh my gosh! Kitties couldn't wait for the new president... and wanted the rest of us to know!
Exhausted, I headed down to the Paramount, with Lara, and met a bunch of other friends there. At 7:15 a.m. there were a thousand people trying to get into the Paramount (much like the Playhouse in Cleveland). I parked the car and hopped in line with everyone else. It was so thrilling! It was 7:15 a.m. and chilly (not nearly as cold as it was in DC), pitch black with frosty breaths. We climbed to the second balcony and after claiming my seat, I skipped around to 2 or 3 coffee shops that didn't have lines to grab some coffees for my friends. I raced back and settled down for the inauguration.
It was wonderful and overwhelming. The older black man sitting next to me couldn't stop crying. He would wipe his eyes, wipe his nose and take a deep breath. And then someone would say something, Aretha would sing, Biden would take his oath, Obama would be sworn in, and the gentleman next to me would start sobbing all over again. My whole row was teary eyed but this man was sobbing - I wanted to pat his back - I wanted to say "thank god!" or "who knew this would ever happen" but he mumbled his own disbelief under his breath and then tears would roll down his cheeks again. And my humble experienced was humbled even more. The couple in front of me hugged each other often. We, as a group of thousand, would often laugh, sigh, or cheer collectively. I got text messages from Seattle, Cleveland, DC, Chicago wrapped in honest disbelief. It was an awesome experience.
I left to head to work (right upstairs - in the Paramount building) stopping by my car (in a piad lot) first to grab my bag that I left in the trunk. I got to an intersection and at a coffee shop a musician was playing the saxophone and people on the street burst into "America the Beautiful". Cars started beeping. A bus driver, seeing all of us flooding out of the Paramount, asked at the stop light, "How was it?! How was the inauguration?" We shouted a collective, "Awesome!" sad that he couldn't make it. What a truly beautiful morning.
We can change the world.
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