‘… So much to do. So little done. Such things to be’
Published 3:31 am Thursday, January 22, 2009
By Staff
In the days preceding the inauguration of Barack Obama I began tinkering with ideas for this column.
I tapped away a few thoughts on a blank screen. Re-read the then Illinois Senator's speech given at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the only live political speech to ever grab my attention.
On the corner of the coffee table, not far from where I routinely fall asleep with some sort of reading material in my lap, sits a stack of unread New York Times waiting for my attention – though it will come a few days late.
There's last week's special New York Times Magazine devoted to 'Obama's People.' And a special double issue of New York Magazine with the president's profile on the cover.
Why, I wondered, am I so intrigued with Barack Obama? It certainly isn't his politics because I don't get politics. Don't want to. Is it his historical significance? I do like history. And I enjoy seeing it unfold in real time. But that didn't seem to encompass my newfound intrigue. So what is it?
I considered. I considered the political analysts who will be going over Obama's next 100 days with a fine tooth comb. Considered African Americans who, enmasse, have expressed their affection for the new president through glistening eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
I considered America's youth -the youngest of which would grow up never knowing what it meant to get here. To see the history that swept over the nation's capital on Tuesday. I considered the Republicans and the Democrats.
Watching the inaugural ceremony, the sweeping visual of citizens packed into every crevice of the nation's capital, seemed to push itself to the forefront of my mind. Beyond the president himself. What is it about him that has intrigued everybody?
The fact that Barack Obama was elected, by an impressive number of voters … that a country so steeped in racial divide could shift itself – majority speaking – into a new era of significance, is not necessarily a part of his story. Rather his election is part of America's story.
Obama did not have a hand in his heritage. He could not have chosen his parents, his past and his future, thereby choosing to be a symbol of racial acceptance in a country whose history includes a violent and scarring chapter of slavery. Followed, only by decades of segregation, inequality and almost evermore disheartening – a continued divide in so many instances.
But he did make choices. He chose to embrace his ideals. And he chose to look away from any fear in sharing those ideals. And quite the opposite, on an unassuming night in November, 2004 he spoke them with such vigor an entire nation took notice.
So it seems, the fact that it is he who embodies the first ever African American to claim the oval office, the fact that America somehow shifted into a powerful majority that looked beyond race as a disqualification, that found in itself a way to move beyond a not-so-long-ago bloody past is more than just that. The fact that a combination of elements: terrorism, greed, ignorance created a platform welcoming of such drastic change … such facts would lead one to believe that some things come to be in ways that can only be done at the hands of something or someone more powerful than us all.
Obama's victory was like a perfect storm. The elements all coming together to lift him up on high. But it is also that perfect storm that all but destroyed the Bush administration. Elements coming together that, in the days following 9/11, lifted George W. Bush and his entire administration on high. We forget … that in those days we might not be so accepting of anyone who was in any way less abrasive as Bush had been, his face on that day a mixture of pure anger and annoyance and uncertainty. We could relate. And then, with a switch of the current – a drop in the pressure – the administration exploded. Each and every member became unrelatable.
I use the term ignorance – because I believe that the entire administration ignored that their practices weren't working. And what's the saying? To repeat the same action over and over again expecting different results – isn't that the definition of insanity? Well, insufficiency at the very least.
And I use the term greed in application to not just those at the head of financial institutions or auto giants – but to an entire country steeped in want. We wanted to believe that we could afford the houses and the inefficient cars and the super-sized credit limits just as much as those auto giants and financial institutions wanted to believe we could. So we did. We came, we bought, and we borrowed. We watched our investments dwindle down to nothing. We lived beyond our means.
On Tuesday, all eyes – and cameras – were on Obama. And it's probably a good thing. Because any shot of now former president Bush seemed to hit me with a vicious sense of sadness. Confined to a wheelchair Cheney, one could say, literally personified what is a battered and injured America … despite the inspiration that Obama has sent coursing through the blood in her veins. And as for Bush, the once intriguing, dashing young cowboy from Texas now looked weathered and worn down. Much like the state of the nation he was relinquishing power of.
But if he brought it on himself – so did we.
And you've got to hand it to ol' Dubya … It ain't easy attending a party that is being thrown – while normally in honor of a transition of power – this time especially in honor of your departure. It ain't fun being booed off stage. The two Republicans probably wanted to be anywhere but where they were Tuesday. And anyone with any sense of mercy would have been willing to give them their own pardon. Unfortunately for them, there is very little in stock.
On Tuesday, Barack Obama minced no words. The course of a nation is as much charted at the hands of her governors, as it is her people. And we are all in this together. And we all have a responsibility. To challenge ourselves to do better. To try harder. To take care of ourselves.
And it is that idea, which strikes me so about our new commander in chief.
He's moxie. And I like moxie.
His education leaves me craving for a bit of my own. His call for "a new era of responsibility" to "put away childish things" makes me want to pull myself out of whatever doldrums I allow myself to enter into and find my own sense of importance. His fierce determination – his evident work ethic – challenges me to keep going even when mine eyes are tired.
His graciousness and respect for what his position in American history now becomes, leaves me feeling as though we all carry such a weight. A weight of our family history, cultural history and personal history – that should be the foundation we build on and the character that keeps our chins up and our eyes on the proverbial prize.
As I finish this, I can feel a chill in my bones beneath the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. My eyes sting and it's safe to say – this girl is tired. But there's not much time to rest. This is only the beginning. As Tennyson once said, "so many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be."