allow me to assault you with a photo perhaps worse than a cell phone would take, snapped while coming up the subway platform stairs, juggling many bags and being regarded suspiciously. but the photo quality doesn't matter here. what matters is that you are looking at a trigger to my most exciting moment this week. this week and beyond. see, election night was exciting. but when i watched obama give his acceptance speech, i was still in that whole 'pinch me this can't be real' phase. it couldn't actually be happening. then the joy didn't have much time to sink in before the unexpected sting of the passing of prop 8.
so i'm walking up the subway stairs after a long day, schlepping the aforementioned and customary bags of stuff i need for the myriad of activities i engage in on any given day. i see the usual scene as my head clears the top of the stairs. turnstiles and the token booth with its uniformed workers. i've seen this same scene many times a day for 12 years. but this day something different catches my eye. a rip in the usual visual program grabs my attention.
someone in the subway booth has posted a full page newspaper photograph of obama on the wall behind. it's not a campaign photo, it's a victory photo. on the bottom it reads, "president barack obama". when i see this i'm taken completely off guard. i realize i still haven't accepted that i don't have to wake up from this good dream. eight years of seeing portraits of a big eared idiot who i'm ashamed to identify as the leader of my country fly out the window. i feel lighter. shame is lifted, and pride takes its place. i'm so damn proud of my country for making this happen. i start to cry. here i am in the subway having that moment that i was too conditioned against believing could happen on election night. embarrassed, i wipe a tear away and shake my head. "i just can't believe...." the man beside me grins and says, "you gottta take that picture!" and i'm too flustered to even focus the lens.
1 comment:
I really like this picture. I know, an amazing reality setting in. Here is my morning scope (what am I? a newscaster): So much hope is being placed in Obama, and what a mess he will be handed. But at least he realizes this and doesn't think he will be able to fix everything in one term. I say, curb the layoffs and mortgage crisis and our military occupation. Also, one legacy he could leave us would be access to health care!
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