I am on an emotional roller coaster. As we get closer to the Inauguration I have been so deeply moved by the history, the possibility, the sense of this country actually trying to perfect itself. I feel so present as I listen to the speeches, the music from the Lincoln Memorial today. Then I find myself caught by memories. Driving the old volvo that we each chipped in $25.00 - and driving to DC, the snowstorms were so bad in Pennsylvania that I found myself just coasting on the shoulder as 5 other people slept in the early morning dawn. Each of us moved to action to speak out against the Vietnam War. Remembering 1987, the Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, not the first, but the biggest. The renewed and tangible clarity that this IS my country, that this government is MY government, and that I had a right to participate completely and fully. I remember being in Lincoln Park and along Lake Michigan in Chicago in 1968. The Chicago blues, race riots, singing in church, walking hand in hand. By the time I heard Pete Seeger singing this Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land - I was in tears. I remember Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and their music struck a deep chord when I was very young. The shift with Barack Obama touches deeply that there is hope, there is possibility, we in coming together and honoring all the parts, will help to create the one, the whole. A more perfect union.
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