Maybe We Hope; Maybe We Heal
January, 2021 was the first time I’ve ever watched a presidential inauguration. Even the enormity of having our first Black president in 2008 didn’t convince me, in my late 20’s, to engage. I’ve always found politics boring and the power parade gross. But something has changed, in me, and in this country, in the past four years, and I‘m recognizing the harm (and privilege) in opting out, and my responsibility to opt in.
Plus, for this ceremony, this celebration, of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden being sworn in as VP and POTUS, I very much wanted and needed to watch, and I did so, sobbing, clinging to my kids on my daughter’s bed. We landed there when I just couldn’t put down my computer long enough to make the normal morning routine happen. Things didn’t feel normal, they felt sacred, and scary, and I wanted us to witness whatever happened, together. My littlest kept asking why I was crying and handing me wads of paper towel to (scratch) dry my face with, and my easiest explanation was that I felt happy and relieved…and I was, but there was more, too.
It was a glorious, sunny, day, at the Capitol in D.C. Everyone looked stunning, and safe, alive, well, masked and careful, and sounded full of hope and determination to acknowledge and then fix what’s broken. After holding our breath in the (years) weeks leading up to the ceremony, thankfully, there was no violence, and we could fully exhale.
Finally, from these leaders, America was described in terms I understood and could get behind. The shadow over everything broke, and there was a lot of light; beautiful hymns, prayers, poems (full text in link from Amanda Gorman, Black woman, first U.S. youth poet laureate), and wall-smashing, ceiling raising, firsts.
I wailed when Capt. Andrea Hall, a Black woman fire chief from Georgia, lead the Pledge of Allegiance in both English and ASL. The citizens of Georgia have had to do so much fighting to make sure their votes were counted, their needs considered. Fire fighters and other first responders have faced so much terror during the pandemic. And Black women….shit. Black women carry the whole fucking world, and they’re exhausted and it’s long been time we recognize their power, their pain, their needs, and their rightful place in leadership.
I just kept shaking my head and pouring out tears as Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (the first Latina SCOTUS judge) swore in Kamala Harris, the first woman VP, first Black and South Asian VP, a daughter of immigrants. I was sobbing with hope for who she is as a person and what she’s bringing to the country- her intelligence, power, empathy, joy, humor, and COMPETENCY, and also for what it represents for all of us who share some of her demographics.
Does it mean they hate us a little less? Are we OK now to exhibit our full strength, to not apologize for ambition, to actually expect respect when we excel, to find the top and keep going? Can we accept that where women lead, incredible things happen, that what women bring to organizations, families, communities, countries, we NEED, and have desperately needed all along? That we women have secretly been doing all this work to make the world turn all along, but on our tip-toes, and now, now maybe we can set our whole damned foot down and stand comfortably in our place, side-by-side with the leaders of America throughout history? Not behind them, not just sewing their flags, or tending their wounds, but IN THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS?!
That’s the other part of my tears that I couldn’t articulate to my daughter. I’m gleeful this is happening and furious that it’s taken this long, that it was still such a battle this time. That Ms. Harris will face a unique level of security threat because of her sex. I’m irate that we’re so far behind so many other countries in having women in charge. That patriarchy still colors everything, and we’re maybe just now sort of recognizing that we women are full people with ingenuity and strength and ability to lead, not just here for pleasure or service to men and allowed to reign only in our homes.
I’m so tired. And the last four years just felt like an unhealing bruise. All the tender, anxious, scary parts of being a woman in this world felt so exposed.
In the light, now, I can finally start healing. So I wept.
I can only imagine the enormous feelings Black Americans experienced watching Ms. Harris take her oath on the Capitol steps…a building built by their enslaved ancestors. Relief, exhileration; fatigue, fury, grief. It’s been such an impossibly long, hard battle, and there’s still such a fight to find safety, equality, and dignity for Black Americans. White supremacy colors everything. Brick-by-brick it was built, and now brick-by-brick, it must fall. This country owes so much to Black Americans. Now.
I’ll be working through all these feelings for a long time to come, and I’ll be holding myself and all of us accountable to keep the protest, the fight, going, because these bricks won’t fall by themselves.
Today it felt like maybe we have a chance. Maybe we have a future.
Maybe we hope. Maybe we heal. Is a whole different version of us possible? Let’s find out.
