The Price & Promise of Citizenship

Here I am, one more person, adding one more Obama post to the blogosphere. I'm not a celebrity, I haven't written a song about him, so does it matter? Yes. Yes it can.

Yesterday seemed like a gigantic wedding for the country, it was so happy, and so was easy to be caught up by the fun details: the First Lady's outfit (trend setting lemongrass), their darling girls, Aretha Franklin's crown (I mean...hat), Barack helping John Roberts with the swearing in, waving goodbye to George Bush (yes!). I teared up countless times. But most of all, I loved how our President grounded us again during his speech: he didn't go on about what "he" was going to do, he was serious about the times ahead and what "we" need to do. All of us, together.

It's exciting to hope again and to have the whole country cheering right along. I'm excited for change, excited to buck up, pull together, plant a victory garden, prepare for sacrifices ahead. I'm ready to pay my price for the citizenship I was born into.

OK-but I do have just a couple teensy-weensy cynical comments about the media and this event. Hearing about Michelle Obama's fashion sense on every news cast is getting a little old. The woman is a Havard educated lawyer, she has other talents besides dressing! And as I watched yesterday and saw celebrity after celebrity, I started to feel a little put off. It seemed rather unfair that so many of them got great seats, but so many regular folks couldn't.

And I know that Oprah was really excited about the Inauguration (if you saw Monday's show)and even commissioned Wil.i.am & producer David Foster to write a song for it, but what I couldn't understand was: why were Bono (hello...citizen of Ireland) and Seal (from Britain) singing about America? Is it that hard to find American singers? I realize I'm being negative, and I truly don't want to take away from what we are all striving for...so, deep breath, I'm letting that all go. Now I'm off to see where I can volunteer a few hours a week.