On (Not) Going to the Inauguration
I feel like I have very little to say about the Inauguration and also kind of a lot.
I'd been excited and apprehensive about going since election night. I'd actually thought about going even before Obama won, and I would have considered still going had he not. The Inauguration festivities were something I could share in with all Americans, blue or red, winners or losers, who were willing to come together to rejoice in change or be counted in protest, to be present at an event that ties us to a couple of centuries of our nation's history. I will admit I was also inspired by an essay by Sarah Vowell in The Partly Cloudy Patriot in which she talks about taking a road trip with some internet political message board friends for Bush's 2001 Inauguration to be one of those quiet protesters, and how even though she cried and felt a lot of dismay and despair, dammit she was an American and this is part of our process. So I would have tried to go to a President McCain Inauguration, since I am in a pretty good place right now to take the time off and do it, and I can't predict that being the case for future Inaugurations. It may have been harder to drum up companions to go to a McCain Inauguration, though.
In the weeks leading up to the trip I was sure to read all of the alerts and articles and news releases about what to expect an how to prepare. When I thought there might be more than 4 of us driving down, I reserved a mini-van rental, just in case. Even though I lived in DC for over a year, I printed out maps and travel tips. We ordered commemorative fare cards for the Metro in advance. I dug out my winter coat that had a lot of pockets and protected well from the elements so I wouldn't have to carry a lot. I had energy bars, hand warmers, an emergency poncho, plastic bags and toilet seat covers all stashed away. I had emergency phone numbers and a calling card in case cell phone service was as overwhelmed as they said it might be and I needed to make an emergency call. And most of all, I knew that a road trip like this to an event like this required a lot of flexibility and tolerance for many obstacles and outcomes.
I arrived at archaica and K's place at about 8:45 Monday night. I met K's brother N who was in from California to go on this adventure with us. We packed stuff up in the car, stopped at the gas station, and got on the road. I fielded a call from my friend B who lives in the DC metro area. She was planning to meet up with us but had been vacillating due to safety and traffic/crowding concerns. I told her to call me in the morning when she made her final decision, and it was ok if she backed out.
We plugged in my iPod to begin the trip with my "Obama-bration" playlist. I was happy that N liked to sing along to many of the songs, including the Dixie Chick's "Not Ready to Make Nice", because I would have refrained from rocking out solo. archaica had the first driving shift, followed by K, and then me. We were supposed to try to take turns sleeping while not driving, too, but I was unable to do that. I got up at 9:30 am that day and had tried to nap in the afternoon in preparation (something I am usually very skilled at) but was unable to do more than doze off and on for a while and I did not sleep on the ride down at all. After one final stop at a 7-11 in Rockville, MD, to ensure we had a chance to use the potty before getting on the train, we arrived at the Shady Grove Metro Station, one end of the Red Line, outside of DC at about 4 am Tuesday morning. Parking had opened at 3:30, and we wanted to be sure we had a place to park the car, or else the plan would totally fall through. We'd decided to wait a couple of hours to take the train in because nothing would be open in the cold, cold pre-dawn hours in DC, and the gates to the viewing areas were not scheduled to open until 8 am. B called, deciding she was game for the trip, and we bundled up our warm layers and got on the train around 7 am. The ride in was probably about 45 minutes. Since we were at the end of the line, we got seats on the train and the crowds were not bad.
We got out at Judiciary Square, and though there were big, orange signs with arrows pointing the way to get to the National Mall and a map we had printed out indicated this should be a way in, we discovered after a great deal of time stuck in a crowd going through a breezeway by the Dept. of Labor building, this was not in fact the way onto the Mall. It was an entry point to the parade route. The mob we were in was large and confined to this breezeway, and once we got near the other side, police cars were trying to head off the crowd. There was a little bit of mass movement, which could have been disasterous but turned out ok. N was holding on to my arm while his part of the crowd moved in one direction and the people around me were not moving in that same direction, resulting in my body moving sideways and my ankle being mildly twisted (and which I was able to walk off shortly).
Out the other side of the crowd, we found a security guard who was telling other confused people that there was an entry point a few blocks away at 7th Street, and at the other side of that checkpoint on the mall was one of the jumbotrons. We got to that location and found another amorphous crowd of people converging upon a gated area. We merged into that virtually motionless crowd and hoped for the best. Word from the front suggested to us that this was, indeed, a non-ticket holder entrance to the Mall, but there were no official notifications confirming that. We waited. And waited. We chatted and joked with our fellow crowd-members. Some were from Florida. Some were from New York. Some were from DC or Virginia or Maryland. Some had been waiting since 4:00 am and still hadn't gotten in. I joked that the Inaugural Committee should have hired the folks at DisneyWorld for an entry point management plan. They could have instituted that "fast pass" system to stagger entry, like they do at all the popular attractions at those them parks! People took pictures. For a while, we had a little room between us to move our limbs and shift our weight, but at some point the edges of the crowd began to anxiously press in closer, and we were touching people on all sides.
To my dismay, there was no singing or chanting in solidarity and celebration. There wasn't a palpable excitement bonding us together. I tried to manufacture some sense of togetherness, of feeling like I was part of a larger experience. I told myself "Here I am, standing shoulder to shoulder with others who are here for the same reason. We who had the tenacity to brave the crowds and the fortitude to weather the cold and the atttitude to take what ame our way - we will endure this together!" We were more bound by anxiety over whether all our trips would culminate in THIS - this waiting and waiting and pressing against each other.
Eventually, though, after hours of enduring these circumstances and having only moved a few feet, it became increasingly apparent that we would not make it through those gates in time to see any of the ceremony. There were THOUSANDS of people waiting there, at this one checkpoint with us, and the gates we all were waiting to pass through only permitted four people at a time to go through screening. And it would seem that this screening took much longer than at the airport, though we couldn't see far enough beyond the crowd to determine exactly what that screening entailed.
Our little group amongst this crowd of thousands gave up. As we made our way out of the masses, people around us asked as we squeezed by them "What, you are giving up? Why?" I admired their perseverence and relative optimism. At least now they might be a few people closer to those gates, occupying the spaces our bodies had been in.
We left the relative warmth of the crowd and reconvened on the sidewalk. What next? Should we take the train back out to the suburbs and watch the Swearing In on B's TV? We wouldn't make it out there in time. Should we go to the NEXT entry point we heard a Metro official talking about where they supposedly were letting people in much quicker, and was definitely a Mall entrance? No. Well, Maybe. We walked in that direction and found an actual orderly line of people waiting. But that line was LONG. Very long. Thousands of people. We were done.
I stopped at a street vendor to buy a few commemorative buttons. archaica took some photos of Ford's Theater. We got on the Metro and headed back to Maryland. We got back to the parking lot and into the car to meet B's husband at a restaurant nearby for lunch. We rode quietly for a few moments. I looked down at the clock, saw it reading 12:12 pm, and said "Hey, guys. We have a new president now." I was sad to realize that we didn't even symbolically mark the Swearing In. Perhaps it would have been exciting to countdown, like watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve, to a theoretical Swearing In moment and cheering "Happy New President!" or something. We didn't even have the radio on in the car.
We got to the restaurant and the TVs were showing *President Obama* well into his Inauguration Speech. We watched from our tables as he concluded. The poet and the final preacher spoke, but by then conversation had broken out and it was hard to listen. The Navy singers began the National Anthem, and our conversations halted and we watched some with hands over hearts. Part of me was hoping people in the restaurant would stand, to feel like a part of it, but they didn't. I'm not a stickler for instituting rules for this sort of thing, but I was dismayed that some of the neighboring tables continued to chat, as if nothing signficant were happening. I know the National Anthem isn't the most exciting song, and it is often abused by bad singers and belligerant, jingoistic citizens, but I still feel it has meaning and is due some reverance. As I listened, I thought about the 55 previous Inaugurations, the 43 previous presidents, the millions and millions of people who had converged on our capital every 4 years for more than 2 centuries, hopeful or anxious but all marking changes to come - and I began to cry. And the waiter brought our food.
It was a valiant attempt to be part of this enormous event, but there it ended. We had a nice lunch, and I got to swing by B's house, which I'd never been to before, and meet her dogs. On the way back, we swung by Philadephia so N could see the "Rocky Steps" at the Museum of Art and take pictures with the Rocky Statue. Since we were in town, we visited for a little while with mosenahobsie at her seminary and ate dinner while we waited to avoid rush hour through New Jersey and New York. We got back on the road at about 8:30 pm. The whole trip, even when we had our downtime waiting in the car and while being a passenger, I'd been able to do no more than doze for a few minutes or rest quietly, so when we got into New Haven around 11:40 I was eager to get into my own car for my final hour drive home. I walked through my door at 12:57 am and was in my bed by 1:05, and was grateful to have been able to take the next day off from work.
At least we tried. I would have regretted otherwise. It didn't go how we'd hoped, but we knew it might not. I was disappointed that we didn't even get in, but the next day I read that even ticket holders didn't get in, and some celebrities and VIPs. We'd been lucky our crowds had been relatively docile and pleasant.
What had I been hoping for? Something like this, where we'd be gathered with strangers having the same emotions of excitement and relief, shedding tears and sharing hugs. People would boo at the out-going administration, and I would smile and nod in assent, but I probably wouldn't join in. It can be emotionally satisfying to boo and mock, but often what is emotionally satisfying is not the most responsible, mature, sophisticated, respectful, or diplomatic choice, and it lowers the discourse. I'm not saying I don't or never have engaged in mockery, or that this wouldn't be a justifiable time to express those valid sentiments, but it isn't something I aspire to do. It is why I stopped being comfortable referring to the former president by his middle initial or other mocking nicknames like "Shrub". His own actions have been enough to diminish him in the eyes of the world and the ledgers of history. While I expected it and would have appreciated the sentiment, I wasn't planning to go to the Inauguration to jeer the former president. I wouldn't want others to do it to the presidents I've chosen, so I wouldn't do it to theirs. I wanted to focus on the positive and not get mired in the other stuff.
I had pictured myself gazing in rapt attention at the giant screens from under my red knit winter hat, with my hand over my heart, next to my sparkly flag pin that proved you didn't have to be intolerant or exclusionary to wear one, singing the National Anthem with tears rolling down my cheeks. Dramatic and a little maudlin, I know. But making the long drive and all the planning and just going to wait and then not wait anymore was anti-climactic.
Also, without further ado, my "Obama-bration" playlist (largely working from the limits of what I already had on my iPod, and in no particular order):
- "American Idiot" by Greenday
- "Someone to Wake" by these dudes I learned about on NPR
- "The Best is Yet to Come" by Frank Sinatra
- "America" a clip from an episode of 30 Rock where they do a 4th of July thing
- "Yes We Can" by will.i.am
- "Come Together" by the Beatles
- "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang
- "The Final Countdown" by Europe
- "Almost Paradise" by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno
- "Respect" by Aretha Franklin
- "Tennessee" by Arrested Development
- "Fight the Power" by the Barenaked Ladies
- "Fight For Your Right (to party)" by the Beastie Boys
- "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles
- "Let it Be" by the Beatles
- "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle
- "Beautiful Day" by U2
- "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce
- "You Got It" by Bonnie Raitt
- "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler
- "More Than a Feeling" by Boston
- "Children of the Revolution" by Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer (Moulin Rouge Soundtrack)
- "Love You Madly" by Cake
- "I Feel the Earth Move" by Carole King
- "Dreams" by the Cranberries
- "Thank You" by Dido
- "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks
- "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John
- "Lose Yourself" by Eminem
- "Good Riddance" by Greenday
- "Give Peace a Chance" by John Lennon
- "Imagine" by John Lennon
- "American Woman" by Lenny Kravitz
- "Hella Good" by No Doubt
- "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder
- "Redemption Day" by Sheryl Crow
- "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
I'd been excited and apprehensive about going since election night. I'd actually thought about going even before Obama won, and I would have considered still going had he not. The Inauguration festivities were something I could share in with all Americans, blue or red, winners or losers, who were willing to come together to rejoice in change or be counted in protest, to be present at an event that ties us to a couple of centuries of our nation's history. I will admit I was also inspired by an essay by Sarah Vowell in The Partly Cloudy Patriot in which she talks about taking a road trip with some internet political message board friends for Bush's 2001 Inauguration to be one of those quiet protesters, and how even though she cried and felt a lot of dismay and despair, dammit she was an American and this is part of our process. So I would have tried to go to a President McCain Inauguration, since I am in a pretty good place right now to take the time off and do it, and I can't predict that being the case for future Inaugurations. It may have been harder to drum up companions to go to a McCain Inauguration, though.
In the weeks leading up to the trip I was sure to read all of the alerts and articles and news releases about what to expect an how to prepare. When I thought there might be more than 4 of us driving down, I reserved a mini-van rental, just in case. Even though I lived in DC for over a year, I printed out maps and travel tips. We ordered commemorative fare cards for the Metro in advance. I dug out my winter coat that had a lot of pockets and protected well from the elements so I wouldn't have to carry a lot. I had energy bars, hand warmers, an emergency poncho, plastic bags and toilet seat covers all stashed away. I had emergency phone numbers and a calling card in case cell phone service was as overwhelmed as they said it might be and I needed to make an emergency call. And most of all, I knew that a road trip like this to an event like this required a lot of flexibility and tolerance for many obstacles and outcomes.
I arrived at archaica and K's place at about 8:45 Monday night. I met K's brother N who was in from California to go on this adventure with us. We packed stuff up in the car, stopped at the gas station, and got on the road. I fielded a call from my friend B who lives in the DC metro area. She was planning to meet up with us but had been vacillating due to safety and traffic/crowding concerns. I told her to call me in the morning when she made her final decision, and it was ok if she backed out.
We plugged in my iPod to begin the trip with my "Obama-bration" playlist. I was happy that N liked to sing along to many of the songs, including the Dixie Chick's "Not Ready to Make Nice", because I would have refrained from rocking out solo. archaica had the first driving shift, followed by K, and then me. We were supposed to try to take turns sleeping while not driving, too, but I was unable to do that. I got up at 9:30 am that day and had tried to nap in the afternoon in preparation (something I am usually very skilled at) but was unable to do more than doze off and on for a while and I did not sleep on the ride down at all. After one final stop at a 7-11 in Rockville, MD, to ensure we had a chance to use the potty before getting on the train, we arrived at the Shady Grove Metro Station, one end of the Red Line, outside of DC at about 4 am Tuesday morning. Parking had opened at 3:30, and we wanted to be sure we had a place to park the car, or else the plan would totally fall through. We'd decided to wait a couple of hours to take the train in because nothing would be open in the cold, cold pre-dawn hours in DC, and the gates to the viewing areas were not scheduled to open until 8 am. B called, deciding she was game for the trip, and we bundled up our warm layers and got on the train around 7 am. The ride in was probably about 45 minutes. Since we were at the end of the line, we got seats on the train and the crowds were not bad.
We got out at Judiciary Square, and though there were big, orange signs with arrows pointing the way to get to the National Mall and a map we had printed out indicated this should be a way in, we discovered after a great deal of time stuck in a crowd going through a breezeway by the Dept. of Labor building, this was not in fact the way onto the Mall. It was an entry point to the parade route. The mob we were in was large and confined to this breezeway, and once we got near the other side, police cars were trying to head off the crowd. There was a little bit of mass movement, which could have been disasterous but turned out ok. N was holding on to my arm while his part of the crowd moved in one direction and the people around me were not moving in that same direction, resulting in my body moving sideways and my ankle being mildly twisted (and which I was able to walk off shortly).
Out the other side of the crowd, we found a security guard who was telling other confused people that there was an entry point a few blocks away at 7th Street, and at the other side of that checkpoint on the mall was one of the jumbotrons. We got to that location and found another amorphous crowd of people converging upon a gated area. We merged into that virtually motionless crowd and hoped for the best. Word from the front suggested to us that this was, indeed, a non-ticket holder entrance to the Mall, but there were no official notifications confirming that. We waited. And waited. We chatted and joked with our fellow crowd-members. Some were from Florida. Some were from New York. Some were from DC or Virginia or Maryland. Some had been waiting since 4:00 am and still hadn't gotten in. I joked that the Inaugural Committee should have hired the folks at DisneyWorld for an entry point management plan. They could have instituted that "fast pass" system to stagger entry, like they do at all the popular attractions at those them parks! People took pictures. For a while, we had a little room between us to move our limbs and shift our weight, but at some point the edges of the crowd began to anxiously press in closer, and we were touching people on all sides.
To my dismay, there was no singing or chanting in solidarity and celebration. There wasn't a palpable excitement bonding us together. I tried to manufacture some sense of togetherness, of feeling like I was part of a larger experience. I told myself "Here I am, standing shoulder to shoulder with others who are here for the same reason. We who had the tenacity to brave the crowds and the fortitude to weather the cold and the atttitude to take what ame our way - we will endure this together!" We were more bound by anxiety over whether all our trips would culminate in THIS - this waiting and waiting and pressing against each other.
Eventually, though, after hours of enduring these circumstances and having only moved a few feet, it became increasingly apparent that we would not make it through those gates in time to see any of the ceremony. There were THOUSANDS of people waiting there, at this one checkpoint with us, and the gates we all were waiting to pass through only permitted four people at a time to go through screening. And it would seem that this screening took much longer than at the airport, though we couldn't see far enough beyond the crowd to determine exactly what that screening entailed.
Our little group amongst this crowd of thousands gave up. As we made our way out of the masses, people around us asked as we squeezed by them "What, you are giving up? Why?" I admired their perseverence and relative optimism. At least now they might be a few people closer to those gates, occupying the spaces our bodies had been in.
We left the relative warmth of the crowd and reconvened on the sidewalk. What next? Should we take the train back out to the suburbs and watch the Swearing In on B's TV? We wouldn't make it out there in time. Should we go to the NEXT entry point we heard a Metro official talking about where they supposedly were letting people in much quicker, and was definitely a Mall entrance? No. Well, Maybe. We walked in that direction and found an actual orderly line of people waiting. But that line was LONG. Very long. Thousands of people. We were done.
I stopped at a street vendor to buy a few commemorative buttons. archaica took some photos of Ford's Theater. We got on the Metro and headed back to Maryland. We got back to the parking lot and into the car to meet B's husband at a restaurant nearby for lunch. We rode quietly for a few moments. I looked down at the clock, saw it reading 12:12 pm, and said "Hey, guys. We have a new president now." I was sad to realize that we didn't even symbolically mark the Swearing In. Perhaps it would have been exciting to countdown, like watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve, to a theoretical Swearing In moment and cheering "Happy New President!" or something. We didn't even have the radio on in the car.
We got to the restaurant and the TVs were showing *President Obama* well into his Inauguration Speech. We watched from our tables as he concluded. The poet and the final preacher spoke, but by then conversation had broken out and it was hard to listen. The Navy singers began the National Anthem, and our conversations halted and we watched some with hands over hearts. Part of me was hoping people in the restaurant would stand, to feel like a part of it, but they didn't. I'm not a stickler for instituting rules for this sort of thing, but I was dismayed that some of the neighboring tables continued to chat, as if nothing signficant were happening. I know the National Anthem isn't the most exciting song, and it is often abused by bad singers and belligerant, jingoistic citizens, but I still feel it has meaning and is due some reverance. As I listened, I thought about the 55 previous Inaugurations, the 43 previous presidents, the millions and millions of people who had converged on our capital every 4 years for more than 2 centuries, hopeful or anxious but all marking changes to come - and I began to cry. And the waiter brought our food.
It was a valiant attempt to be part of this enormous event, but there it ended. We had a nice lunch, and I got to swing by B's house, which I'd never been to before, and meet her dogs. On the way back, we swung by Philadephia so N could see the "Rocky Steps" at the Museum of Art and take pictures with the Rocky Statue. Since we were in town, we visited for a little while with mosenahobsie at her seminary and ate dinner while we waited to avoid rush hour through New Jersey and New York. We got back on the road at about 8:30 pm. The whole trip, even when we had our downtime waiting in the car and while being a passenger, I'd been able to do no more than doze for a few minutes or rest quietly, so when we got into New Haven around 11:40 I was eager to get into my own car for my final hour drive home. I walked through my door at 12:57 am and was in my bed by 1:05, and was grateful to have been able to take the next day off from work.
At least we tried. I would have regretted otherwise. It didn't go how we'd hoped, but we knew it might not. I was disappointed that we didn't even get in, but the next day I read that even ticket holders didn't get in, and some celebrities and VIPs. We'd been lucky our crowds had been relatively docile and pleasant.
What had I been hoping for? Something like this, where we'd be gathered with strangers having the same emotions of excitement and relief, shedding tears and sharing hugs. People would boo at the out-going administration, and I would smile and nod in assent, but I probably wouldn't join in. It can be emotionally satisfying to boo and mock, but often what is emotionally satisfying is not the most responsible, mature, sophisticated, respectful, or diplomatic choice, and it lowers the discourse. I'm not saying I don't or never have engaged in mockery, or that this wouldn't be a justifiable time to express those valid sentiments, but it isn't something I aspire to do. It is why I stopped being comfortable referring to the former president by his middle initial or other mocking nicknames like "Shrub". His own actions have been enough to diminish him in the eyes of the world and the ledgers of history. While I expected it and would have appreciated the sentiment, I wasn't planning to go to the Inauguration to jeer the former president. I wouldn't want others to do it to the presidents I've chosen, so I wouldn't do it to theirs. I wanted to focus on the positive and not get mired in the other stuff.
I had pictured myself gazing in rapt attention at the giant screens from under my red knit winter hat, with my hand over my heart, next to my sparkly flag pin that proved you didn't have to be intolerant or exclusionary to wear one, singing the National Anthem with tears rolling down my cheeks. Dramatic and a little maudlin, I know. But making the long drive and all the planning and just going to wait and then not wait anymore was anti-climactic.
Also, without further ado, my "Obama-bration" playlist (largely working from the limits of what I already had on my iPod, and in no particular order):
- "American Idiot" by Greenday
- "Someone to Wake" by these dudes I learned about on NPR
- "The Best is Yet to Come" by Frank Sinatra
- "America" a clip from an episode of 30 Rock where they do a 4th of July thing
- "Yes We Can" by will.i.am
- "Come Together" by the Beatles
- "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang
- "The Final Countdown" by Europe
- "Almost Paradise" by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno
- "Respect" by Aretha Franklin
- "Tennessee" by Arrested Development
- "Fight the Power" by the Barenaked Ladies
- "Fight For Your Right (to party)" by the Beastie Boys
- "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles
- "Let it Be" by the Beatles
- "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle
- "Beautiful Day" by U2
- "Crazy in Love" by Beyonce
- "You Got It" by Bonnie Raitt
- "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler
- "More Than a Feeling" by Boston
- "Children of the Revolution" by Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer (Moulin Rouge Soundtrack)
- "Love You Madly" by Cake
- "I Feel the Earth Move" by Carole King
- "Dreams" by the Cranberries
- "Thank You" by Dido
- "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks
- "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John
- "Lose Yourself" by Eminem
- "Good Riddance" by Greenday
- "Give Peace a Chance" by John Lennon
- "Imagine" by John Lennon
- "American Woman" by Lenny Kravitz
- "Hella Good" by No Doubt
- "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder
- "Redemption Day" by Sheryl Crow
- "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole