Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Inauguration tchotchkes

Kalin came all the way from Vancouver to attend the Inauguration ceremony with Dory. They left Sunday afternoon and returned late last night after spending 7 hours slowly making their way from DC to New York. They then spent another hour or so recounting (in part due to my insistent questioning) their first-hand experience of the Inauguration ceremony. And while the stories of the million-person crowds struck terror in my heart, a small part of me felt regret for not participating in person.

These souvenirs, if they should choose to keep them — a nametag, a small paper American flag waved vigourously on the National Mall, an unused DC metrocard, pictures taken with frigid hands — will be worth the memory exercise and bragging rights in the future when they recount their participation in history to the next generation: "I was there when the first black president was inaugurated."

CONSUMED: my apartment; Brooklyn

2 comments:

  1. Aw, don't feel bad! Just think about how lucky we are all to be alive right now, regardless of where we witnessed the historic moment. Although I, too, wondered if I shouldn't have said "screw it" and headed down to watch history unfold, I talked to a bunch of people at choir last night who simply watched as you and I did -- during a break from a work day (that was spent mostly glued to the news, anyway), with colleagues -- and we realized that it a certain significance to it, too, however unexpected.

    And what I felt while watching it was a strong sense of all being in it together -- our friends on the Mall, folks in the bar where I was, and people I knew who were watching it from around the world. I usually only get that feeling while watching the Olympics. :)

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  2. I got that feeling when I was looking at The Gates in Central Park. It's what made me like The Gates so much (and not The Gates themselves).

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