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Inauguration Part II: The Morning
Inauguration morning, I woke up at 3:45 AM. The Metro was scheduled to open at 4 AM, and we wanted to be on one of the first trains going into DC. Melissa and Mama Shea, bless their souls, got up even earlier than I did. As we had all showered the night before, most of our time getting ready was dedicated to dressing very, very warmly. I had five layers on top – a pink fleece long-underwear top, long-sleeved bicycling shirt, fleece jacket, my peacoat, and the outside of my ski jacket on top of it all. Then, three layers on the bottom, including the fleece long-underwear. Over all of that, a hat, gloves and mittens, bicycle socks, fleece socks, and most importantly, my official Obama scarf, complete with campaign logo.

We got to the Metro station about 4:10 AM. It wasn't near full, but there were definitely a number of people on it already. All looking extraordinarily bundled up. As we anticipated it would be impossible to actually change trains at Metro Center, we got off at Judiciary Square instead and walked to the Mall. Except that instead of walking straight towards the Capitol, we had to detour all the way around it because of security. Thankfully, they shut down one of the highways through the city, allowing pedestrians to walk through the tunnel under the Capitol. From the Metro station, we followed the loose group of people, twisting and turning, until reaching the tunnel. There, it became a mass of people, a river of excited humans, all walking towards one location. It was bizarre walking through the tunnel, with the only vehicle being the occasional police car. I kept walking backwards, taking photos of people, and then running to catch up with Melissa and Mama Shea. Even when we emerged, it was still terribly dark out, and the number of people only continued to grow. We got pretty confused for a bit as to which direction we should take to the Mall – we seemed to disagree with the rest of the crowd. At one point, we were walking down a pretty abandoned street, which was a little creepy.

But we did eventually get there, around 5:30 AM. Once we were there, it was even more ridiculous. There was a huge crowd of people crowded near what was supposed to be one of the few entrances, but the police wouldn't let us in. People kept yelling, trying to find out what was going on. Without really answering anyone's questions, the police kept telling people that only those whose group was already inside could come in, but who was already inside by 5:30 AM? After being yelled at for 10 minutes, we continued on down the Mall. Eventually, we came to a point where people were cutting through the Hirschorn Museum's garden, even though it was obvious we weren't supposed to. But it wasn't officially closed, so through we went. I tried desperately not to trample any plants, but I think I stepped on a few by mistake. Once we reached the actual Mall, we actually ran towards the Capitol, in hopes of getting a good spot. Mama Shea was rather slower than Melissa and I, but we always made sure to check behind us and make sure she was still there. Most of the section was empty so far, and once we actually reached people, we started weaving our way through the crowd. Eventually, we reached a point where the crowd was pretty dense and we were satisfied with how close we were.

And then, we waited. It was still very dark, and we knew it would be for a very long while. The TVs were up and ready, but nothing was showing on them. So we took some photos, and chatted to the people behind us. There were a couple of college students from McGill (one was Canadian, one American), and a bunch of kids around our age from California. They were very kind, and offered to share their cardboard with us, if we shared our space with them. As we wanted to sit down, and cardboard was better than the hard, cold, frozen ground, we readily took their offer. The people in front of us weren't quite as social. The couple in front of us had a blanket, but the guy was sleeping on his back on it for probably about an hour after we got there. It was a little odd.

The whole area was like one big, weird, cold party. To add to the party atmosphere, the Boy Scouts were handing out flags, so everyone was very patriotic. And waving the flags gave us something to do. Everyone huddled together a bit, some talking, some just chattering. For a very long time, I was warm, sweating from being in so many layers on the heated Metro, and then hiking quickly to the Mall. But standing and sitting in the bitter cold, I gradually got colder and colder, wondering when the sun would rise. Thankfully, it rose over the Capitol in a beautiful pink and purple sunrise about two hours after we arrived. It didn't warm up right away – I don't know if the temperature ever actually rose during the day – but it was a sign of hope, at least. Even this early in the day, hope for warmth was starting to seem important than political hope.

After a certain point, Mama Shea, Melissa and I started rotating out to go take walks around the Mall. They went to the bathroom, but discouraged by the thought of the Port-a-Potties, I just wandered around. I found people doing the “Cha Cha Slide” and joined in for a bit. I spotted army cadets talking to enthusiastic inauguration-goers, and took a photo of them at relaxed attention. I peeked inside a white plastic tent and saw people were shivering together inside, having no source of warmth other than each other. I thought about joining a giant group surrounding a television camera on a moving arm, taking video for some news channel, but decided against it. The day before, we hung out in front of the CNBC booth, but failed to be there when the “crowd” camera was actually on. We saw a couple of the CNBC anchors though. Also, by this point in on Inauguration morning, the giant Jumbotron TVs had started playing the concert from Sunday afternoon. People were grooving to the music, and one was so joyous I had to take a photo of her. I couldn't help but smile, even though I couldn't really feel my feet any more.

Around 7:30 AM, I received a call from Chris. He had called me at 6:15, to tell me he had arrived at work, but no one was there. Which was quite surprising, because his boss told Chris he was supposed to be there that morning. Almost everyone else was serving at an inauguration party on Pennsylvania Ave. that they had to be there at 3 AM because of the security issues. At the time, I told him to wait until 7 AM and leave if no one showed up. Chris's second call was to tell me that he had been hanging out at the coffeeshop across the street until his head chef showed up, at which point his head chef told him he didn't need to be there. Because didn't Jeff tell him he didn't need to be there? No, he didn't. Clearly. So I told Chris to come down to the Mall and meet us there. After taking a cab as far as he could – to Chinatown – he walked the same way we did. Around 9:30 AM, he called me a third time, babbling a bit. Trying to figure out what he was talking about, I left our spot again to search him out. By the time I figured out where he was, I also understood his problem. Our section was absolutely closed to people coming in. Chris was standing at a gate at the end of our section, which was open, but guarded by a couple of very zealous policemen. I went up to Chris, and talked to him through the chain link fence. I even handed him our extra mittens, as he didn't have anything on his hands. (He was at least able to pick up a hat from an Obama vendor on the way over.) It was like some bad Holocaust movie. And like one of those movies, no matter how much I pleaded with the guard, he was not going to budge. I made the “can you please let him in?” question, “but he's my husband!” plea, the “we planned well and him being here late was an accident!” but none of them worked. No sympathy at all. So I went back to Chris, talking through the gate. He informed me that apparently he wasn't the only one kept out of our section – he had seen a very annoyed Samuel L. Jackson in the next section down! His handler was obviously in big, big trouble. After talking to me, Chris walked all the way back to the Washington Monument to watch the event from high on the hill. Afterwards, he said it was actually pretty crowded back there, as everyone was gathered around the Jumbotron.

From then on, we didn't do much else except watch the TVs. They showed the rest of the concert from the day before – This Land is Your Land was gloriously hippie-hopeful. I sung along to the song, and sang especially loudly when Pete Seeger sang the really activist verses about the Freedom Highway and private property. Then they started showing the various dignitaries and politicians coming in. At least it was more interesting than what they had on before, which were a series of tips for staying warm. It was a bit useless, considering that we couldn't leave, for fear of not being allowed back in, and were told previously that we couldn't bring in thermoses anyway. But watching the “important people” was rather fun. I tried to take a lot of photos of the Jumbotron, over people's heads, and had limited success. Some came out clearly, some came out with completely different people in them than I expected, and some came out with some level of thematic significance (lots of waving flags). Hillary and Bill got cheers, as did Colin Powell. (Is there anyone who doesn't like Colin Powell?) I personally cheered for Al Gore. Not surprisingly, Bush got heckled when he appeared on screen (“Na na na na, hey, hey goodbye...”) and Cheney got really booed. Most of it was in pretty good nature, although one lady behind me definitely bothered me. She had a little kid – probably no more than 5 – and I could totally respect her wanting her kid to participate in this historic moment. But when Bush and Cheney were on screen, she made the nastiest, most self-righteous remarks one could possibly make to a 5-year old about political issues. She said things like, “Look at him, honey. He's a bad, bad man. He should die.” Even if you disagree with someone, even on something so horrible as a war, you should never, ever tell a five-year-old someone should die. I held my tongue, but it made me angry that a political movement that I love because it is essentially grounded in the hope of a better future should have so much bitterness and lack of forgiveness. But I think that's true of any political movement – they all are subject to that. Besides the essential “Jesus loves everyone” idea, that is why we need to love those we disagree with – sometimes, they are right! That's why I didn't boo, even in a half-hearted way. I campaigned for Obama because I wanted to move beyond this nonsense. I wanted to build a better future, with better politics.