By ALICE LYNN Special to the Palisadian-Post Words can never fully capture the emotions I felt while witnessing the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama; pictures seem flat without the depth or expanse of dimension, and without the sounds of voices echoing joy and jubilance. But on the cold, crisp, sunny morning of January 20th, my two children and I were witness to a historic event that still leaves me reeling. The stories began on Monday, as my son Eric and I walked from our hotel, first to the Hart Senate Building, where we stood for over two hours with thousands of others in a security line to pick up our Inaugural tickets from Senator Boxer’s office, and then to the Congressional Office Building and Congressman Waxman’s office for additional tickets. Everywhere one looked, strangers spoke, new friendships formed, and hugs were freely given. We all seemed to be experiencing a new depth, a new connectedness that is uncommon in our lives; we were all celebrating together, and the feelings emanating from these human connections were astounding. Monday night over dinner with fellow Palisades friends, Gail Wirth and her daughter, Hannah, we shared experiences. Earlier, Gail had met Jesse Jackson as he was leaving our hotel and ironically, sitting next to us, was Jackson’s son, Jonathan, and his friends. A spirited conversation developed, and when Jonathan learned I was a therapist, we spoke for some time on the changing black family and the dynamics he witnesses among his friends, all successful in business but often feeling less sure in their parenting and marital roles. How does one capture the emotion experienced by being part of this extraordinary event? Perhaps it is best told in the vignettes of stories, of lives touched that so moved my family and me. ‘ There was the white judge, a Republican, who drove from North Carolina with his two teenage children, who never had voted for a Democrat, and who spoke of how moved he was by Obama and his message of hope. ‘ There was the African American foreign service officer from Maryland who spoke of his difficult time in foreign countries as diverse as Turkey, China and Morocco and how tarnished our reputation has become. He spoke of the enormous hope that America would once again regain our world standing. ‘ There was the white owner of an office furniture store, the campaign director from North Dakota, who spoke of meeting Obama and how they talked for over 20 minutes on being parents, and his warm impression of the man, of his poise and genuineness, who is our President. ‘ There was the African American family from Colorado who brought their two school-age boys to see the first black president inaugurated so they could someday tell their children they were witness to this historic event. ‘ There was the young hearing-impaired white woman, a recent graduate of Gallaudet University in D.C., who had experienced her first involvement in politics working on Obama’s campaign, and who with her Latina friend, a recent Stanford grad, were overjoyed at being able to attend the Inauguration. ‘ There was the 92-year-old African American woman from Missouri, who with tears in her eyes said, ‘Never in my lifetime did I expect to see a black man become President.’ ‘ There was the hearing-impaired white couple signing with enthusiasm and smiles. ‘ There was seeing the T-shirt on an African American man in his 50s that read ‘My President Looks Like Me!’ We walked, and we waited for hours in the biting cold, with thousands of others, and there was not once an incidence of unruly behavior or negativity. People of all complexions and nationalities, the able and disabled, with walkers and wheelchairs, the very young to the notably old’all Americans were represented, and we all felt the experience of coming together. When Eric and I arrived at our standing position in front and to the right of the Capitol, we looked back over the Mall and could barely take in the emotion of seeing thousands and thousands of faces stretching beyond the Mall and the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. My daughter Jennifer and her husband were standing just behind the Reflecting Pool and had even a greater perspective of the multitudes. No one else, my son observed, could have or has affected and energized and excited our country and the world in so profound a way as Barack Obama, simply by his rhetoric and inspiration. My daughter reflected on change in feelings between the races; having lived in D.C. with her husband for 10 years, she said the anger often seen was clearly absent, replaced by reconciliation between the races. As a young girl, a daughter of an Armenian immigrant, I remember keenly the road trip my family took in the summer of 1951. We were driving though the South. I had seen the ‘whites only’ signs, the difference in outdoor movie theaters and the homes distinctly differentiated by race. But when we stopped at a Fosters Freeze one hot summer day, and I went to the side of the building for water, and saw the two fountains, I ran back to my mother with great excitement to announce, ‘They have colored water!’ It was then that the full impact of racial division hit me. It is an experience that has never left.   (Alice Lynn, an active member of the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, coordinated a group of about 20 friends who attended the Inauguration.)
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