On Watching the Inauguration in Florence

"All of us as vital as the one light we move through."

-Richard Blanco, 2013 inaugural poet

As I was winding down my day yesterday, one of the professors upstairs turned on a live feed of President Obama's inaugural address on one of the computers.  I went upstairs to the office and sat down to watch.  The professor I was sitting with is Italian, but had lived in the States.  "I was at the 1993 inauguration of Bill Clinton, exactly 10 years ago," he told me.

Leave it aside that we were watching a live feed through a computer from across the ocean (seriously, how amazing is technology???), I had also been following the day's events through the eyes of several Facebook friends who were at the inauguration, posting photos and comments.  Every time the camera panned out on the crowd, I was totally awe-inspired seeing just how many people had turned out to see the inauguration, while searching for familiar faces in the crowd.

The professor with me was equally impressed.  I told him that I was pretty sure that there were more than a couple people in the crowd who hadn't voted for the President, but had just shown up for the festivities and the sheer history of it all; doing the same thing on the same day at the same time as folks have been doing every four years for over two centuries.

"There's nothing like this is Italy, even on the first day of the new Parliament, the opposition boos."  he said.

I keep re-playing moments from the inauguration in my mind and, in particular, that conversation.  It made me proud to be an American, even from what feels like a world way.

I'll admit that living abroad, it's easy to forget where I came from: the nation that nourished me, built me and educated me; that is to say, the nation that made me who I am.  It's easier to be critical from afar.  And it's hard to remember where you came from when you are trying so hard to fit in somewhere else.

But that we came together, even if it is only for an hour, to celebrate our first African-American President (even those who didn't vote for him or don't agree with his policies) and our republic on the day devoted to the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is something truly special, a moment that should not be discounted even as it is fleeting.

In the next weeks, even today, Washington will get back to doing what Washington does best: arguing, disagreeing, playing the political game.  And isn't that the stuff that democracy is really made of anyway, for better or for worse?

Make no mistake, the last four years have certainly not been perfect.  The next four years will bring some important and possibly painful choices as we run up against a growing debt, questions about gun legislation, America's role in a constantly changing world, and environmental degradation.

But for just one day, it's refreshing to be reminded of my identity.  To be American.   To see Americans standing where Americans have been standing; watching peaceful, democratic transitions for centuries and to stand alongside them, even from a world away.

"Hear: the doors we open for each other

all day, saying: 

hello

shalom, buon giorno

howdy

namaste or buenas dias

in the language my mother taught me-

in every language

Spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words

break from my lips."

-Richard Blanco

God bless America, indeed.