Inauguration!…in which there were many celebrations and events

Yes, the Inauguration was a month ago. Yes, I missed the boat a little on posting these. BUT, the exciting thing is, I learned how to embed flickr slideshows in my wordpress.com blog. Hurrah for free technology! All thanks must go to Geeky Coder for creating an original post, which I commented on and requested a simplified version for the non-techies among us. AND, he/she obliged! Thanks! Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to make the font in this post un-tiny after my embedding victory. Anyone know why it won’t change??

Anyway, I keep looking back at the Inauguration and thinking: Why didn’t I tweet more? Take more photos? Get my well-thought-through and compelling post up quickly, like Julia? And then I remember everything that was going on (see photos–also there were an additional 8 events I didn’t photograph…). And that it was FREEZING. To give you some background on this, I am from Atlanta, and I hate cold. To be clear, cold to me is 50 degrees or lower. Maybe 55. Believe me, I am moving to a tropical island soon. The point is, when I woke up and it was 12 degrees on the morning of the Inauguration before windchill, and I was excited about going to the mall, it was a big deal.

I am not sure that I can encapsulate all of the amazing things about that day in one post or my thoughts, feelings and analysis of our political future. So, I will give you the highlights of my favorite parts of the day:

1. My brother was there. And he looked Amish. And he put me on his shoulders to take photos. (Note: My brother likely weighs possibly 10-20 pounds more than me and has almost a foot of height on me. So, also a big deal.)

2. We made friends with a guy from the Netherlands and his friend from Italy who were shooting a documentary. It felt incredibly appropriate to have foreigners there and excited for this new era. Certainly this would not have been the case for the last few inaugurations.

3. The crowd was massive and peaceful. This amazed me and I was so impressed with the kindness and excitement that surrounded me in the sea of 2 million.

4. I didn’t know what would happen next, but it felt like progress was being made. Right there on the mall, we were stepping forward. Together. Into some unknown new world. I can’t explain it, but that is how it felt. Some background here. I am currently job searching, laid off in early December with about half my colleagues (and many other Americans). One would think that more change and uncertainty in my life would be worrisome, unwelcome. Instead, it was exciting. It is exciting. Change, in what seems like the right direction (both in our politics and in my career), is exciting, not scary. At least not until we run out of money…but we’re not there yet. And hopefully won’t be!

So, those are my very belated thoughts. What are your thoughts now that we are about a month in?