the world is changed?
that's what everyone keeps telling me anyway. today is the day that change happened. today barack hussein obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the united states--the last great empire, gasping its last breath. not as he tells it. he wants us to believe that the sun is not setting.
i woke up this morning and realized it could maybe be a new world. and i thought about mr. browne. i honestly don't know why exactly. i guess it was because when i was in his class, when i was seventeen years old and it was the year 2000, i still believed in things. and i remembered my favorite ben franklin quote from one of our readings:
"Whilst the last members were signing it, Doctr. FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. "I have," said he, "often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun."
this was when they signed the constitution. the same constitution that barack hussein obama today swore to uphold. unlike his predecessor. and this was his message. and i desperately want to believe it.
one of my away messages, five years ago, was a quote from the dnc that year:
"It is time to reach for the next dream. It is time to look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is there, the sun is rising, and our best days are yet to come." - John Kerry, 7/29/04
and i remember the dnc four years before that too. clinton had a similar quote. i guess they've all been selling hope to us for centuries.
tonight though? tonight i finally let go. i thought i would cry on election night, but i didn't. i really do think i lost it all over the past decade--the easy hope of youth. i'm not old. i have not faced too many hardships the twenty five years i have been here. i have been lucky. i AM lucky. but tonight i finally cried. i thought about the inauguration eight years ago--the first inauguration i paid attention to. i ate en entire entemann's cake that day. and four years ago i sat on my balcony (!) at carlyle and cried, listening to "move over" by fair street. "move over, it's over." my father cried, i cried. my father cried. he hadn't cried since his father died. and he had been born and raised under a brutal communist dictatorship.
so. i guess my point is that real pain comes from a promised hope that then goes unfulfilled. growing up my parents had no hope. but coming here they had hope. and they had such fantastic hope for their children. and just as we came of age bush came to power. and now? now maybe we all have a chance i guess. maybe we can try and relearn optimism instead of cynicism. maybe that's possible.
i don't really know. but i desperately want to believe that now is our time. that the sun in indeed rising and not setting. not only for our country but also our future. that i can have children and not think they will be inheriting a worse world than i was born into. and so i listen to the song i put on when i found out i would be graduating college with honors. and this time i am finally able to include the rest of our world in my happiness--to maybe once again believe that anything is possible; to maybe feel young again--to feel seventeen again. yes. YES. PUN INTENDED.
let us put our past behind us. PLEASE. i am still so angry. but i want to let it go. i want to let the last eight years go. i want to live inside this song and forget about bush. four years ago i wrote that i wanted nothing more than to be able to bury my anti-bush propaganda in a box. and now i am finally able to. maybe the last eight years were just a hibernation for us. perhaps spring is only just come upon us. perhaps i can finally rediscover the lightness of my years. perhaps we all can. let's all believe that our best days still lay ahead, shall we? at least for a little while.
i woke up this morning and realized it could maybe be a new world. and i thought about mr. browne. i honestly don't know why exactly. i guess it was because when i was in his class, when i was seventeen years old and it was the year 2000, i still believed in things. and i remembered my favorite ben franklin quote from one of our readings:
"Whilst the last members were signing it, Doctr. FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. "I have," said he, "often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun."
this was when they signed the constitution. the same constitution that barack hussein obama today swore to uphold. unlike his predecessor. and this was his message. and i desperately want to believe it.
one of my away messages, five years ago, was a quote from the dnc that year:
"It is time to reach for the next dream. It is time to look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is there, the sun is rising, and our best days are yet to come." - John Kerry, 7/29/04
and i remember the dnc four years before that too. clinton had a similar quote. i guess they've all been selling hope to us for centuries.
tonight though? tonight i finally let go. i thought i would cry on election night, but i didn't. i really do think i lost it all over the past decade--the easy hope of youth. i'm not old. i have not faced too many hardships the twenty five years i have been here. i have been lucky. i AM lucky. but tonight i finally cried. i thought about the inauguration eight years ago--the first inauguration i paid attention to. i ate en entire entemann's cake that day. and four years ago i sat on my balcony (!) at carlyle and cried, listening to "move over" by fair street. "move over, it's over." my father cried, i cried. my father cried. he hadn't cried since his father died. and he had been born and raised under a brutal communist dictatorship.
so. i guess my point is that real pain comes from a promised hope that then goes unfulfilled. growing up my parents had no hope. but coming here they had hope. and they had such fantastic hope for their children. and just as we came of age bush came to power. and now? now maybe we all have a chance i guess. maybe we can try and relearn optimism instead of cynicism. maybe that's possible.
i don't really know. but i desperately want to believe that now is our time. that the sun in indeed rising and not setting. not only for our country but also our future. that i can have children and not think they will be inheriting a worse world than i was born into. and so i listen to the song i put on when i found out i would be graduating college with honors. and this time i am finally able to include the rest of our world in my happiness--to maybe once again believe that anything is possible; to maybe feel young again--to feel seventeen again. yes. YES. PUN INTENDED.
let us put our past behind us. PLEASE. i am still so angry. but i want to let it go. i want to let the last eight years go. i want to live inside this song and forget about bush. four years ago i wrote that i wanted nothing more than to be able to bury my anti-bush propaganda in a box. and now i am finally able to. maybe the last eight years were just a hibernation for us. perhaps spring is only just come upon us. perhaps i can finally rediscover the lightness of my years. perhaps we all can. let's all believe that our best days still lay ahead, shall we? at least for a little while.