Lost and Found
I woke up early and thought about all the good things that unfolded on January 20.
Like most Canadians, I follow American News as well as reading the Globe and Mail. I was a landed immigrant in the US some years ago when my husband entered a graduate school program and I had to be the single source of family income. This made getting a teaching job in a public school impossible without taking out first papers to become a US citizen and I was not prepared to do that. The private school network was my only option and I applied for all the positions advertised in the New York Times without success. At the last minute an aunt noted that one of her friend’s granddaughters attended a little school in Manhattan and thought that the principal was a Canadian. She was right – and on the strength of our common graduation from Trinity College in Toronto, she hired me.
The Kennedy visit to New York was an early omen of all the good times to come when we arrived – seeing the original version of West Side Story and walking out the side door of the theatre to the graffiti of street gangs – and later The Music Man with Professor Harold Hill’s opening monologue - a precursor of rap or Hamilton. What I didn’t know then was that the small high school where I taught was the first private school in the United States to be racially integrated – an achievement of its bi-racial headmistress.
Unlike my parents who turned to the Britain as their cultural second home, mine has always been the USA. When I first acquired Netflix I watched all 88 episodes of The West Wing – twice. After the downside of the Bush years and the first promise of the Obama ones, that sort of political life still seemed a possibility - even when endangered by the improbable rise of a reality TV star. I hadn’t been back to NYC for a long time and when it finally happened more recently it was still the same in terms of visceral energy – but also safer and cleaner.
As I watched on the eve of the inauguration, the landscape of Washington was a grim reminder of the unbelievable events thirteen days earlier - now empty and fortified, sombre with only four people facing their new lives, a quiet invocation, a couple of solo singers – and when the lights came on to bring the Lincoln Memorial into focus, a reminder that facing daunting futures was not new.
My Wednesday morning book discussion group on Zoom was interrupted by a phone call and I didn’t take it. When I tuned in to the Inauguration, the new president had already been sworn in and was finishing his address. Amazing Grace was a good choice, and I was sorry to have missed Lady Gaga. But then came the young black poet who stole the show with the promise and hope of a new generation. Her words sparkled.
More slow pageantry followed as I settled in with a grilled cheese sandwich for a long afternoon; the somber drive to Arlington Cemetery where the new president was joined by his predecessors and by the first woman vice president to lay a wreath. The political pundits had slowed down with a welcome absence of noise. Even the previous departure of the former vice president had brought new dignity to his person, when two vice presidents and their partners ended a ceremonial good-bye with an informal laugh. It was easy to imagine that it was a quip of the former female partner to her successor in the role.
One could watch the lazy gathering of the motorcade and the sudden restraint of all the commentators, whose voices now showed almost reverence for slow and dignified processes – even apologizing for saying “Joe: instead of “President”. Watchers joined them becoming patient with wondering “Will they walk?” or “Is it too dangerous?” The constant glances of the secret service surveying the landscape and tall buildings was still a sudden reminder that only two weeks to the day we had been in a very different place.
But the new team did get out and walk the vacant streets as they headed for their workplaces. The evening’s events were spare – upbeat music that often demanded a sense of the absent audience. But the vignettes of ordinary people were warm and it seemed totally appropriate for a UPS man to be a star.
I suddenly remembered my earlier phone message and learned that a letter had been left in the mailroom of a building I lived in four years ago – and that a thoughtful friend had delivered it to my current one. Moments later the envelope came through the apartment door. On opening it I discovered a Christmas card from one of my oldest friends. I had seen her last in person several years ago when she was not well and depressed. A letter had been returned from her nursing home, and I had feared the worst. Yet here was a signature that was clearly hers – and a new address on the envelope.
I turned on the TV one last time to see Anderson Cooper interviewing young poet Amanda Gorman She was as charming and engaging as she had been on the podium. They shared the fact that they both had previous speech defects to deal with and she was pleased that they both joined the new president as members of the Speech Defect Club. She talked about her research of all previous inaugural poems but also her review of tweets, her reliance on text rather than images and her contention that words matter – especially now. She even added that she wasn’t sure about the last two lines with their options for “free it” “see it”, and “be it” but settled on “Only if we are brave enough to be it – because courage is what we need now. Anderson Cooper was clearly both charmed and moved and concluded by noting that Hillary Clinton hoped that Amanda would run for president in 2036 now that another barrier had been broken. “Madam President Gorman, - I like the sound of that,” she said.
I did too – and I want to be there when she wins. It was time to get up this morning. And I suddenly remembered it was my 85th birthday.