january 20, 2009 / toast to a new day
oh-anne
It’s an ordinary day, no different from any other. The moon set, the sun rose. We awake, we break our fast, we go about our business. We greet our neighbors and our co-workers, we take up our tools and engage in the labors we’ve undertaken. We think, we dream, we toil, we wish for more hours in the day, we wish the existing hours will pass more swiftly, and we go about our business.
This morning a white man was President of the United States. A man whose father was President before him, whose grandfather was a Senator, whose great-grandfather was an industrialist; a man of privilege who purported to be a common man. This afternoon a black man is President. A man whose father abandoned him, whose mother died young. A man who grew up and worked among the common people, who proved himself to be exceptional. Today he will begin to go about his business, which is us.
Tomorrow will be an ordinary day, no different from any other. Tomorrow we will awake and take up our tools and go about our own business, and today’s President will have no more effect on it than yesterday’s President. Nothing has changed. Except, of course, everything has changed. Though we may go about our business as unaware of the change as the tides are of the moon, the gravitational pull of history cannot be denied.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
