Dear America,
When I awoke yesterday morning, the better part of President Obama’s inauguration was already over. I turned on the television just as he was walking down Pennsylvania Avenue with his First Lady, waving to the crowd, on what was obviously a bitterly cold day. The journalists covering the event were emotional, reporting the scene with tears in their eyes and as the music of U2 played soundtrack, I also became teary. It was a ‘Beautiful Day’ indeed.
I don’t think that as an Australian I’m supposed to be invested in your special day, but I am. Perhaps it is because when I hear him speak, when I listen to the power and clarity of his words and the sincerity of their delivery, they find their target. The brilliance of his oratory is his ability to locate within the imagination of those willing to listen the potential of their own hearts, and their families, their sons and daughters. I realise I might be shouted at by some for even daring to write this post: because I have no knowledge of American politics (and I don’t, really) and that instead of Washington-gazing I should turn my eyes back towards our land, our problems.
We are yet to see if the tenure of Obama’s Presidency can ever possibly live up to the expectations it was entered upon but I hope – and work for – the homespun potential he has stirred my soul to believe I can achieve. I am a natural cynic; often I look past tall towers to spy the shadows cast behind, to wait for them to turn, to shift, with the passing of the sun into something which betrays their prominent majesty.
But today, now, the sun shines directly down on me as I sit and write this. I clasp my hands together. I clap them. For you.
