Watching Obama's Speech/No Bad News Part II

No, Zephyr, we were not all "on ecstasy."

It's hard to adequately describe.

The experience of being in the stadium and hearing the speech made me feel simultaneously much bigger and much smaller.

Before we left, the Maryland delegation had a lunch where Steny Hoyer very genuinely teared up. And wisely pointed out that we don't have to get arrested or chased by dogs or hosed by police. We get to be part of the struggle that people fought and died and suffered for just by participating. Most of us were crying.

Wise words also, because the line was seriously about 2 miles and took us 90 minutes (we were lucky, that was actually short.) Every time you felt frustrated though, you realized how silly and ridiculous it was to complain. And amazingly, few people in line did. I would put the asshole-whiner to happy person ratio at 1 to 500.

We had nosebleed seats behind the podium for which we were grateful. The downside was that we couldn't hear that well and lots of music and words got covered over by applause. But the upside was that we were WAY up. You could get a sense of the enormity of it. (10 times the number of people in the hometown I grew up in.) You could see the mountains in the west and the miles and miles of lines snaking off in the distance waiting to get in. We watched the sun setting on the snipers on the top rim of the stadium and the twinkle of camera flashes growing stonger like fireflies in June.

Sitting there in the afternoon, the strong thought crossed my mind that I could die. 80K people and the first black man running for president.....like I said, I watched the first season of '24'. Indeed, I heard they shut down the airspace over Denver because some nut job with a Cessna thought it would be fun.

But I didn't care. The thought was real and the thought wasn't scary. Getting back to the first post on this blog about Patty Griffin's song "No Bad News." The whole event -- not just the speech -- but the act itself, felt fearless.

Around me in the stadium was America in the truest sense: black, white, brown, asian, latino and every fusion mix of person. The very old, babies, college students, and boring 30somethings like me.

On the floor where my aunt was sitting, they were all crying and hugging each other and realizing they will forever be bonded in a way with which lobbyist-funded fillet mignon and wine can never compete. Flags waving everywhere.

At the end, there were fireworks and confetti. What I will probably remember the most strongly are the white paper stars, underneath the real Colorado stars, that floated down on us even from the very top like snow. We sat and drank it all in and watched people for a good 40 minutes after the speech. One girl in particular really stood out to me:

With her glowing parents watching, a little blonde girl with a beaming smile and what appeared to be a serious disability that disfigured her face, walked along the empty rows, gingerly gathered the white paper stars and carefully put them in her pocket.