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Watching history: Making “the dream” real
I awoke this morning from a dream, knowing that in a matter of hours I would be witness to a dream.
As President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office for the United States presidency, I find myself holding my breath, hardly able to believe that this reality. I find myself filled with pride.
I have no great expectations that he will be able to effect change, to immediately solve our country’s woes: I am a realist and the problems we face as a nation will take not months but years, possibly terms, to resolve and set right. I am ready for that.
I took time, though, to reflect on my personal history, remembering how the marches in Alabama and in Washington D.C. played out on that black and screen with the rounded edges, back in the 60s in the parlor of my blue-collar working class home. I’d watched the dream of the Kennedy election and the horror of his assassination, I followed the civil rights movement, listened to the “I have a Dream” speech, and was caught up — I believe righteously so — in the passion and fervor of those times. I was part of the peace movement then, staunchly anti-war and pro-human and civil rights. Nothing’s changed.
"The Problem We All Live With" by Norman Rockwell
Some years later I made one of many visits to the Norman Rockwell museum, fascinated by the charm and innocence of Rockwell’s earlier, but moved to tears by the political passion of works such as the classic “The Four Freedoms,” and by another painting, “The Problem We All Live With,” Rockwell’s classic political statement showing a pigtailed young girl in a white dress being led to school by United States Marshalls.
I watched the 2008 election process unfold, watched an educated young black man orchestrate a technology-based campaign with a style, grace, intelligence, reason and concern for the future of the country, ultimately winning the election because his message resonated with everyday Americans. He came from a background not unlike mine: little money, a lot of efffort to educate himself, a commitment to community and family, a belief in social justice. A desire to serve.
Obama beneath the gaze of Daniel Chester French's Lincoln (Memorial)
Sunday (1/18/09) night I watched the Concert for Obama at the Lincoln Memorial, a place I have visited many times by day and night, just as I have spent hours in the Berkshire (Stockbridge, MA) studio of Daniel Chester French, the creator of this Lincoln figure … a studio with scale and proportion models of hands, face, all the elements of this masterful work. On Sunday night, I watched Obama speak about his dream for America with the image if Lincoln behind him and the Washington Mall, overflowing with listeners, before him, a crowd not unlike those who came to Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. for that 1960s “Dream” speech.
Today, in a matter of hours, I will step away my role as a journalist for a while, and simply be an American watching history unfold in the form of Obama taking the oath of office as our President. President Obama. I want to savor this piece of history before I return to the realm of correspondent, of commentator.
I want to watch the dream become reality. It’s been a long time coming.
About Christine Anne Piesyk 
In my 40+ years in media, I have worked as feature writer, investigative reporter, editor, publisher, and film/theater/arts critic. I brought my liberal New England activism to Tennessee several years ago, having finally completed a mid-life undergraduate degree in community organizing and women's studies, and an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts with a concentration in Alzheimer's Disease. I served on Future Search Commissions for two colleges and on homelessness for the City of Northampton (MA), where I applied some of my undergrad work in urban planning and community development. I am a member of FreeThinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties. I am a certified storm spotter just because weather fascinates me. In my spare time (define spare time please?) I am a voracious reader, obsessive movie buff, ballroom dancer, and classical music junkie. I also create sci-fi/fantasy and renaissance costumes. I see life as an ongoing opportunity for learning and adventure (one current interest is mastering preparation of foods from India and Southeast Asia). My dream: a return trip to Machu Picchu. After all, the best things still to come. All posts by Christine Anne Piesyk as presented on Clarksville Online are copyright ©2006, 2007, 2008 to the author.
Email: womanspeak@gmail.com
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