I was in Washington for the inauguration, at least via satellite, watching from a VA clinic. It was cold in there too, just like D.C. The windows were loose, and the wind found its way through them. A staff worker brought in two space heaters, brand new, out of the bags, out of the boxes, and plugged them in. “I just bought these,” she explained, “out of my own pocket.”
The House of Representatives was being brought in, and we started seeing images of former presidents arriving. George Bush Senior was tottering with a cane, Jimmy Carter looked younger than Bill Clinton, and Ted Kennedy looked terrific.
Two old veterans were cracking jokes and a third one wheeled in on a motorized chair, the control lever mounted on the left. He said arthritis in his right thumb was so bad, they’d mounted the controller on the left. He said arthritis was pretty bad there too, and they really should have mounted the lever in the middle, indicating he could steer with his penis.
The three old veterans looked around to see who was laughing.
“See, they’ve got a sense of humor,” said one of them.
“That’s all we have left at our age,” said another, “is humor!”
“No, we’re rich!” said the man in the motor chair. “We’ve got silver in our hair, gold in our teeth, and our stomachs are full of gas!”
I didn’t realize how much warmer the room had become. Those heaters didn’t seem like they were doing a thing against the cold at the windows. Another staff member came in, frowned at each heater in turn, felt their foreheads like they might be very sick. Then she pulled the plug on each of them and removed them from the waiting room. It got very cold again.
The former presidents were announced. No one seemed to know where Hillary Clinton was going to sit. She looked like a radiant bluebird, ready to fly and sing, kick Bill Clinton in the nuts if she had to for her Secretary of State confirmation.
Malia and Sasha appeared, gracious, smaller versions of their mother, decorated in jewel-tone fleece; soft, easy smiles, the breeze caressed their hair as they stepped into place, their childhood staunchly guarded by their grandmother.
The three old veterans were still chattering jokes. A woman walked in, pulling plugs off a tangerine. She’d eaten half of it, and the other half was still encased in its shell.
The vice presidents arrived, and then the presidents. Feinstein got up and began to run the ceremony.
The woman with the tangerine shushed up the three veterans with the dirty smiles. Two of them went out and sat by the elevators. It was probably warmer there. The third one in the motor chair got called for his appointment.
Joe Bidden was sworn in on the Ark of the Covenant. Barack Obama baubled his oath over the Lincoln Bible, trying faithfully not to split an infinitive on the Constitution. But in-between, there was that beautiful moment. In-between the swearing of the Vice President and the swearing of the President, when Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman held the moment on a string, all the grandeur of John Williams spilled off the movie screen, onto what is real, heroic, thunderingly momentous, and Williams provided pause more powerful than the invocation. He gave a moment where over one million people gathered on the National Mall, and millions more around the world, in peace, allowing the magnitude of what was happening to sink in quietly, with a solemn start, gathering in the Puritan roots, and embellishing with larger themes of what America has become and continues to grow into.
Later I ate lunch on the Devil’s Elbow on the St. Johns River. I ordered seafood stew, a brace of American fowl, and an apple sponge cake. They didn’t have those. I pretty much settled for catfish and cheese grits, but that’s okay, because that’s America too.
