The Audacity of My Hope
January 20, 2009
If you accuse me of borrowing
the title from the book “The Audacity of Hope” written by President Barack
Obama, then I stand guilty as accused. However as what follows progresses
hopefully you will understand my stream of consciousness as I attempt to
encapsulate my emotions on this historic inaugural day.
It is difficult nay nearly
impossible to fully and accurately portray the many ways that this President
has stirred my soul. All I can tell you is his words have cut me
to my core and each time he speaks my eyes well up and overflow and I find
it intriguing that the mere sight of the Obama family makes me cry.
In fact just thinking about seeing them together on the west façade
of the U. S. Capitol starts me up again.
I will admit that I am
a quite emotional woman, and more than a few times I have been accused
of wearing my heart on my sleeve. In that indictment, in so far as
our new President is concerned I confess that the allegation is correct.
In the past few days leading up to this momentous change of command I have
watched the many specials on CNN and MSNBC and my continuing, concurrent
emotional expressions serve only to cause me to ask, “Why does this phenomenon
persist and why are my emotions so intense?
Would that I could quickly
pinpoint an accurate response to that question; you must believe me when
I say that I have repeatedly rolled this question over and over in my mind!
With each occasion of introspection I have fallen well short of a strict
response and in its absence I find it necessary to simply speculate.
This treatise will seem somewhat peripatetic and long-winded, but I cannot
help that because I am hoping that as I write, my own understanding of
my emotion will be clarified.
As I grew to maturity
I can thankfully say that I was raised in a home that was devoid of racial
prejudice or stereotype. I will be forever grateful to my parents
for not embroidering my psyche with intolerance. I have always approached
other people of both genders and other ethnicity with an open mind, and
I proudly can say that over the years I have been blessed by many friends
of every hue and creed.
My recollections of the
Civil Rights movement are interspersed with personal experience due my
geographic placement at the scene. I am certainly not claiming an
identity within the ranks of those who struggled but rather that of a witness
to the events resulting from my proximity. To now see the attainment
of our Nation’s highest office by one for whom the lesser among us toiled
is in itself enough to bring out my emotion. One of my long-held
hopes was that I would see in my lifetime the last vestiges of Jim Crow
fade into obscurity.
As I mentioned in an earlier
blog entry, my vote for this President is only the second time that I have
cast a ballot in favor of a Democrat. This time however, in addition
to marking my choice, I placed my actions and my treasure into the contest.
My additional investment this time made me a greater stake holder and with
it a personal feeling of accomplishing something larger than my existence.
Speaking of that earlier
Democratic President, I had the pleasure of seeing JFK in person when he
visited Duluth, Minnesota on September 25, 1963. Initially, I savored
the memory of that smiling countenance for just over two months prior to
that terrible day, November 22, 1963. That afternoon as our young
President passed Dealy Plaza my joy was replaced by horror and an enduring
gloom.
I voted for JFK because
he stirred in me the hope of a nation that recognized the dignity of each
of its citizens, a country that was dedicated to its secure future, and
a republic that was positioned to allow each of us to participate in the
responsibility for preserving the democracy. Not until the emergence
of President Obama were the same notes of optimism apparent in our anthem
of national pride and enthusiasm.
Back in the day I was
accused by a former father in law of being optimistic to near insanity.
Only in part was he correct, but it was never optimism that was my mantra,
rather it was my idealism and romanticism that formed that alleged lunacy.
During the campaign leading to November 4, 2008 our President referred
frequently to the appealing to our “better angels” a theme once coined
by our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln which is likely as idealistic a
premise as any.
I have always believed
that we should aspire to those events and ideals that exceeded our existence.
If none of us ever seek to succeed to a high level of accomplishment then
we must be prepared to be no better than the least of us. Each of
us has a concomitant obligation to challenge each other to triumph over
mediocrity. If not then the best we can expect is to never fully
realize the “American Dream.
Additionally, I believe
that my emotional investment may be assumed to be an evolution into a love
of the man himself. He embodies all of the qualities that any woman
would wish to see in a man of their dreams.
In consideration of all
of the above perhaps The Audacity of MY Hope might be the visualizing of
an evolutionary translation of the President’s many words into my own personal
reality.
Amazingly, in the time
since posting this to the web I believe that my writing was the cathartic
process I needed in order to regain emotional control.
