Take Note

It takes longer to study a life than to live it, longer to interpret a work than to create it, longer to understand an event than it took to happen.
-Robert Davidoff (2006), American Historian

Each moment of President Obama's inauguration seemed to stand still in time. Like a tennis ball at the height of a service toss or one's gaze while holding a brand new infant, time stood, as if blinking wild with lights saying "I will remember this forever." The journalists, pencils in hand, are ready. The historians take notes too. This is a first that will be studied and analyzed and recorded. Our young daughters will remember Obama's daughters and our grandchildren will write reports on his ideas. Maybe they will ask us "How old were you when Obama became president?" just to frame whatever else we have to say about this moment in American History.
I will tell my grandchildren how new time seemed at the moment Obama said "I, Barack Hussein Obama..." I will tell them how proud I felt because he represents a new and better world; a world in which ideas drive actions and words are chosen one at a time to inspire an entire planet. I will tell them my ninety-year-old grandmother called from South America to congratulate me on America's bright future. She also could tell the world was new once more. I will tell them of hope and how powerful a human emotion it is, if only for today.