I have been in the DMV for the past three inaugurations and have attended none. In 2016 I arrived a day ahead of The Women’s March to see oddly silent and empty streets. In 2020 Covid kept crowds home after the unthinkable request that people not attend ceremonies since it was a pandemic. Today the sun is shining but proceedings are covered and indoors, hidden away from the greater country the government, and the ceremony, are supposed to represent.
This is a sad three-peat of unfortunate inaugurations over nearly a decade where the joy and comradery of a country has seemed to continually deteriorate. Where do we find hope now? All I can do today is ignore my TV and look to the small things. There is sun. There is a strange calm. These are small things, like all the small things we will need to convey, and collect, and conduct over the next four years. Four years where we will need to look away from the grandiose gestures, like inaugurations, to the intimate acts that will keep us going and, hopefully, shrink the divides that have followed us through three presidential terms already.
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