There were four of us at our house in the Washington DC suburbs planning to attend the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama, though only Kim and Zoe Witkowski (who had come from South Carolina) and I actually went. Many people thought we were a bit mad to even consider braving the cold and the several million people who were expected for the event, but the pull to be part of history that day was too strong to resist.
We awakened at 4:30 AM to begin getting into our layers and layers of clothing, as the temperature was predicted to be about 18 degrees F with the wind chill. After grabbing our hand and foot warmers and a few snacks, we headed off to the Metro. At 5:45 AM we boarded a relatively full train, which became more crowded with each stop. When we exited at Judiciary Square, it was a somewhat surreal sensation to be downtown in the darkness with the streets closed to car traffic. We found ourselves part of a throng of people moving with a single-pointed focus toward the Capitol.
What we hadn’t anticipated, however, were the checkpoints. We saw the 3rd St. Tunnel ( this was later referred to as the Purple Tunnel of Doom – where thousands of people were blocked from ever reaching the Inauguration). We decided it looked a bit too scary and walked on by. When we arrived at the next crossover point, we were told it was only for people with tickets, which we didn’t have. So we turned around and walked past the tunnel again to the next crossover point. This too was closed, so we continued on – walking farther away from the Capitol. When we got to 7th St. we again found a large crowd waiting. We waited for a while until we heard people say it was an entry point for the Parade route only, and not the Inauguration.
Our sense of frustration and urgency was mounting. Our friend Damien had just called from the Mall area, and he said it was already packed. He had entered from a point much farther down, near the Lincoln Memorial. We realized that any advantage we had from arriving early was quickly disappearing, It was beginning to look as though we may not even be able to get to the National Mall to witness this historic inauguration. So we weighed our options – to walk another mile or more to enter from the Lincoln Memorial area, or to try once again to get through at a checkpoint.
Since the checkpoints were closer, we decided to try that option. We stopped to ask several police officers for information, and it was obvious that there wasn’t a coordinated information stream. Rather, there seemed to be mass confusion, with more than a trace of desperation beginning to show on the faces of people in the crowd. Finally, one officer we spoke with told us that she had heard they were about to open the 3rd St. Tunnel again. As we arrived at the entrance to the tunnel, there was bedlam and a garbled loud speaker message that it was no longer the entrance point for purple ticket holders, and they should go to another entrance point – though where that entrance was no one could hear.
The three of us stayed put, waiting for another announcement, when suddenly there was a little forward movement in the crowd. So we started moving with the crowd, keeping close to a wall on the far edge of the crowd to avoid being crushed in the middle. We were well into the tunnel by now, and were there for perhaps a half-hour more. Finally we could see light, but we were still not through. Our group pushing through the tunnel was probably twenty people abreast and maybe two hundred deep, and we all had to funnel through an exit where only two or three people could pass at one time.
Several announcements blared out, urging people to step back to avoid crushing people, assuring us that we would all get through. Then there was an announcement that this was now an entrance for the parade route only, and not the Inauguration. We were stunned. And disheartened. After all that, we wouldn’t even get to see the Inauguration? It seemed we had made a huge mistake in coming, and all I wanted to do now was to find some way to get home in time to watch it on TV.
But, this was where we were, and there was no way to turn around and go back through that tunnel against the rush of people. So, we kept moving. Finally we arrived at the security checkpoint, where we were patted down, our bags were searched and we were sniffed by two threatening German Shepherds as a final security measure.
As we emerged from the Security tent area, we looked up and the Capitol loomed before us, looking quite glorious against the blue sky. I felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as she had her first glimpse of the Emerald City. And the Mall was right there in front of us, but on the opposite side of the street which we weren’t allowed to cross. So we surveyed our possibilities, and found a spot at the top of a grassy hillside with a commanding view of the Capitol. We spread out a blanket and settled in, realizing that we hadn’t done so badly.
We were quite close to the Capitol and just 50-100 feet to the left of the prime real estate of the purple ticketed area. The sun was bright and actually seemed to warm us on our little patch of grass. And we could sit down – something we hadn’t anticipated.
Around 10:00 the music began. Shortly after, there were excited cheers coming from the crowd in front of us. We stood up and saw President-elect Obama’s motorcade coming past us on Constitution Avenue, heading to the Capitol. Apparently, there was an advantage to being on the Parade route, after all. It was thrilling to be so close, having felt so far from it all just two hours before. There was more music, though it was sometimes obscured by a helicopter that kept circling overhead. (President and Laura Bush’s helicopter, we learned later.)
Then the crowd’s focus shifted to the Capitol as the Inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States began. While our view was superb, the sound was less so. My daughter Saroja, who had stayed home because of a cold, called me and began relaying more clearly what was being said, as well as the accompanying TV commentary. I would then relay this to the crowd around us. At 12 noon, the swearing-in had not actully happpened yet, but Saroja told me that Obama was now officially President, even without the oath. When I shared this with those who were standing near me, there were shouts of “Praise the Lord!” as well as many tears.
I was surprised by my own tears and how emotionally moved I was. I felt that I – we- and all who were watching this on TV or the internet around the world – were part of a quite profound shifting of consciousness that was being articulated by Barack Obama. There was a feeling of hope, joy, possibility and oneness that connected even total strangers that day. As another onlooker described the Inauguration, “The day was cold, but the winds of change have never felt so warm.”
I felt a Divine Presence quite strongly there and wondered what work God might be doing, unseen and unheard, though the concentrated focus of the millions who were watching the Inauguration. I had the sense that many people that day experienced a glimpse of how life could be in a world where our guiding values are spiritual and born of love and compassion for one another. Perhaps our “tunnel of doom” experience was a symbol of all the struggle we have had and still must pass through to get to that new day dawning. But, oh how brightly that new day beckons…
(This was a guest post written by Pamela Butler-Stone of ElementalHome.net.)
One Comment
Dear Pamela,
my wife Astrid, who lives in Myrtle Beach, tells me that she knows you and your brother Greg and that she is quite impressed with his website and the beautifully written entries. She has just introduced me to his blog and after perusing the various entries and comments I found your contribution Inauguration Day, 2009.
My tears had actually come when on election day at about 10 p.m. ET Wolf Blitzer had announced that Barack Obama would be our new President. I was somewhat taken by surprise about the strength of my emotional reaction when I was sitting alone in front of the TV set. Out of nowhere I had started to sob, thinking of Martin Luther King, of the dream he had dreamt for an earlier generation, of the civil rights movement and all the courageous people who had created the path to the gates of equality in a land that had kept those gates closed for too long and yet had risen to a height of enlightenment that few would have thought possible. It was as if a dark curtain had forever been pulled back, revealing the hope and excitement that are the hallmark of unique, historical moments.
Back in November 2008 I had written on Shekhar Kapur’s blog the following comment:
“I do not believe that there has ever been an election in America that had touched the hearts of a worldwide audience as profoundly as this one. Billions of people instinctively felt that something special, magical was about to happen, that there would be a leader of a caliber none of us has seen before. That it is the much maligned America that has elected such a man will send out powerful signals that the cry to once more become a beacon of hope has finally been heard by the many millions of Americans. They have at long last risen to the task, have understood this incredible, historic moment and have shown a responsibility that far transcend the realm of their own sphere of interest.
There is a dignity and a grace about Barack Obama that I have never seen in a leader in my life time. There is a sadness in these dark eyes as though they know that the promised land is still in the far distance but they also project a genuine optimism that in the end humanity is inherently better than its reputation. From here on out the pundits will talk their heads off to paint future scenarios of frustration, to spell out eruditely why Obama cannot succeed and I say, they will be wrong. I think there will be a dynamic at work that outpaces all conventional wisdom about politics as usual. I believe that this man understands, better than anybody who ever occupied the White House, that almost half the country did not want him as President. It is their frustrations he has to soothe, their doubts and their anger he must neutralize. He must win over the other half in order to effectively do what needs to be done to lead America and eventually an anxious world out of their malaise.
It is quite conceivable that maybe only once in a century in a country’s history a man rises from obscurity to become a leader who dares to initiate the changes that will elevate such country to the kind of moral and spiritual level that silences the skeptics and cynics among its people. There were such leaders in the past and Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela immediately come to mind. Barack Obama will ultimately be named in one breath with them.”
I liked your guest post very much.
With kind regards.
Horst Vollmann