Fam, Friends, fellow Americans!
I'ma do it to you again, go writing into the future, to a bigger, older, maybe-hopefully curious Izzo. So buckle your seat belts, hang on and bear with me, if you're up for it ...
I've been sitting in my car for hours upon hours the past six days, itching to be sitting in front of this computer so that I might record, for you, Izzo, some of what I perceived to happen this past week. 'Cause it was a big one.
You, Darling Angel Rock Star Gymnast Cooking Cookie Mess-Making Good Girl, turned 20 months. Yesterday. I forgot even to tell you Happy Birthday in the couple hours I saw you when I got home from writing two stories and posting a short video from the final round of the marathon golf tournament in La Quinta, some 2 hours, 15 minutes away, out past Palm Springs. So I'm tellin' you now, here, Happy (20-month) Birthday, Princess Izzo!
(Mighta thought such sentiments silly, once upon a time, but now, no, because now every month and every day and every miniscule moment feels like the honest-to-goodness blessing that it is. And, yeah, Izzo, you did that for Momomom.)
So. OK. Anyway. Before you, Princess Izzo, went and turned 20 (months), and beer-swigging newlywed Pat Perez won his first PGA Tour event, a wee bit of history was made.
That Barack Obama guy we elected in November? Yeah, you know, 'cause you can say, in your way, his whole name now -- "Brack Bama Bahm-Mah, Bahm-Mah, Bahm-Mah!"
Dude was sworn in and officially made our President on Tuesday. (Twice, actually, to make sure, on account of the oath being slightly flubbed the first time around ...)
On their Web site, the LA Times did this great video, hanging out in four locales around LA to capture reaction to the ceremony. A TV show's set, a courthouse and a couple other places. It really worked because the whole occasion had a real "Where Were You When ..." feel to it.
Abba and Grandpa were watching it with "transients and attorneys" (to quote the local paper) on a big screen at his library. Uncle Bob and you were at Tatik's taking it in. Daddy was, I think, at work already. Where was everyone else? What were you doing? Whom were you with? I bet you'll remember.
I was alone, in my car, my little, private capsule, hurdling with history east over the I-10, through Redlands when it became official, glued to NPR's coverage.
Here's the thing. I hadn't been especially impressed by the lead-up to the Inauguration. It lacked the high drama -- and high humor -- of the election, for one. For another, the whole pre-inaugural, made-for-TV concert they showed on HBO -- minus, apparently, a prayer from a gay preacher -- was a little corny, a little stiff, a little SuperBowl-ish.
Still, yes, I appreciated the significance of it all falling in line with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I appreciated the significance of the moment. But, until it happened, I hadn't actually appreciated the moment.
But there I was in my little dirty Honda, more entertained than I would've thought possible by the endless interviews with the happy People there at the mall, and fascinated, really, by all the historic inaugural factoids brought to light by NPR's team of reporter-experts.
And then Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Anthony McGill and Gabriela Montero played (or pretended to play) "Air and Simple Gifts," a perfectly lovely, hopeful, American piece of music that borrowed heavily from the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts," which ignorant me didn't realize until then also was the basis for my favorite song in the world: Aaron Copeland's "Appalachian Spring."
And so, it turns out, Yo-Yo Ma and friends Milli Vanilli'd their way through a song that informed me that my most cherished piece of music was SAMPLED. But even that, Izzo, wouldn't take away from the experience, and especially not then, at that moment, simultaneously solitary and unifying and wonderful as it was.
It was all so wonderful, so all-consuming, that I was honestly shocked, at the end of Obama's oath, to hear myself woo-hooing the "... so help me God," cheering aloud to myself as though I were back in the dugout at a softball game. Really.
Really.
And then the National Anthem, which I don't usually sing. But again, I surprised myself, because there was my voice, on auto-pilot, delivering the words I've heard at sporting events for all this time, coming from some proud, unexpected place within. And then, when I realized I was singing along, I had to work on not crying along. Because, suddenly, I was driving 70 mph and tearing up.
It wasn't so much the intense historical weight of it all, though that was massive, and I will not take a thing away from that. But, for me, it was simply that it all made me feel good, in spite of all the references to common dangers and winter of hardships and the like.
I listened hard to Obama's 17-minute speech, which would be described from then on as "sobering," for the first of three times that day, nodding and sighing and furrowing my brow, but hopeful, to use dude's campaign buzzword, that this smart guy and his team of smart folks will be smart enough to see us through and around and over and past big problems. Hopeful, because I believe they, like, really care.
I met a retired high school teacher at a golf tournament months back who told me a story about then-Presidential candidate Biden, who didn't just respond to her letter complaining about the "No Child Left Behind" policy that he helped create with a letter of his own, but with a series of them, genuinely wanting to know as much as he could about her stance and her experiences, because he seemed to, like, really care. She said he even took what she'd told him and brought it up in some of the Presidential debates.
So, for me, there's that sense that our President and his peeps sincerely mean well, added to the fact that he is extraordinarily capable -- and, because this matters, a hugely popular figure. It's good, I say, that one of our biggest contemporary pop stars is someone who matters in the big scheme. I can't say I've experienced that before, but Izzo, you get it at the age of 1 -- even though you don't quite get it. Well, not quite don't get it. You don't get it. But you will, in your own way, eventually.
For the record, what struck me hardest in my all-out, Ohhhhhh-I-Get-Obama moment was this: This rarest of leaders and I are on the same team!
My favorite passage of the speech: "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."
That's how I want to think of my country. That's reason to be proud, and I especially am about this. And I wrote so on my little facebook profile, which got Daddy's teasing me, calling me a bandwagoner following the hype, basically, but he's wrong: With the world watching, we Americans did something really cool and really good. And, heck yes, I'm proud for that, as an old softball coach would've said.
We'll see, of course. A week in and those supposedly bipartisan stimulus ideas aren't so bipartisan, which ain't cool, except that, yeah, I cheered reports of the President's ending a philosophical debate with Republican dissenters in a private meeting of the minds by telling them that his opinion prevailed because "I won." But then, I'm not even sure I'm down with the costly, short-term concept of throwing checks around, even as I gear up to listen to reports of lawmakers fight about the bigger potential solutions. Meanwhile, did anyone notice that two remote-controlled U.S. air-strikes killed 22 people at suspected terrorist hideouts in the border area of Pakistan over the weekend? Is that good? ... And the beat goes on, no?
So, well see, of course.
It all certainly gave me something to think about on my treks to the desert and back, something beside how I couldn't wait to get back to Izzo and Daddy, who made a habit all week of sweetly preparing the apartment for my return. Tidying up and cooking/arranging dinner, so that when I straggled in every night between 8:30 and 9 p.m., I could plop down, refuel and relax, be happy and, yes, talk about what I heard on NPR that day.
......
Wait. What? You wanted Izzo news?
Here's something.
Tatik changing Izzo's dirty diaper, telling her just how -- Poof! -- stinky she was.
Izzo, apparently, took this lying down without taking it lying down. She hollered right back at Tatik, telling her who knows what, but perhaps, like, a toddlerbaby version of "... and you think yours doesn't stink?"
Which, if you want to delve too deeply into it, can mean two things.
1. Izzo's a tough girl. She's going to defend herself. She's not gonna back down. She's not going to, pardon the pun, take no crap from nobody.
2. Orrrrr ... Izzo, like most little ones, is very, very much a reflection of us around her. We hug and kiss and love a lot, she hugs and kisses and loves a lot. We listen to music and sing and cheer, she listens to music and sings and cheers. We tease her. She teases us.
Maybe both.
We'll see. Of course.
Lots of love, all.
Be very well.
Us
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