a new day...

cold and wintry and sunny. a million or more people. an interesting speech, a blown swearing in. an old lion having a seizure and an old rapscallion being wheeled around in a wheel chair. aaron copeland delivered over the mall by the likes of yo yo ma and itzak perlman. incredible.

the gods worked it so i had the last half of the day exam free, so i could watch the inaugural. when diane feinstein asked people to stand, i actually came around from behind my desk and walked up to the tv, looking up, feeling a bit silly, but thinking that at least this way, i was participating.

i listened to all of the speech. i wondered where oprah was. i wondered if bruce springsteen had already done his musical thing, or is that tonight? i tried to imagine what a black person must have felt like today. and i know i failed at that, although i tried. i did walk away from all of it hoping for a new start. god, this country needs something fresh, something happy, some grit. do we have grit? or is this just a bright patch of landscape that soon will be overshadowed with thin clouds and lingering bad weather?

bill clinton did me in. in '92 i was a "black person" with a lot of hope. i wanted to believe that he was going to bring something fresh to the white house and it wouldn't be politics as usual. and then he let me down, and boy, am i a jaded old dinosaur now. this is why i am tentative with my emotions concerning this new president. in all honestly, i don't want to be disappointed again. and i know that is a crappy, selfish attitude. but i have come by it honestly.

i could live the rest of my life now thinking the glass of life is unquestionably half full. no one would argue with that, in that most think that way. it is hard to be a cheery optimist when so many around us disappoint. but i am not ready to concede.

i preach to my kids that you can't change the world by yourself, but it is important to try and make some positive impact in some small, tangible way. don't worry about global. do something small and well in your own backyard. i need to follow my own words, and not just leave it to the next generation to put it into fruition.

so the sun is down, the snow is out there somewhere, twinkly and light and coming and going. it is cold enough to make me happy, cold enough to wake me up. but it is warm inside the house, and most of us will just stay inside and be warm. it takes a little courage to go outside and stand on the porch in the dark and the cold. no one can see you, and you can't see them either. maybe that is what i want Obama to do...stand on the porch in the dark and the cold. and maybe i want all of us to step out of the house and stand with him, abandon what is comfortable but static, and make change. change comes from rippling the pond and not worrying about being different or right, or wrong. change comes from having the courage to go in the dark without any sure knowledge of where you are going or what will greet you there. someone has to go first. maybe, just maybe, this melting pot of a guy can go first and others will follow. let's hope so.