BRATTLEBORO — I am sitting at the airport, about to head home from the the 56th presidential inauguration; overhead, they are “paging the person who just lost their iPhone.”
I hear people walking by, talking about Obama. A tote bag with those big ears declares “forward.” It feels like everyone in the city was here to celebrate.
I know some were just here because they live here, but I have to say, the waitstaff, pedestrians and Metro workers I talked to radiated good cheer - even when I panicked because my fare card wouldn't work.
I like to think the cheer is a glue that is binding us all.
The city was in lockdown. I have never seen anything like it. How else, I suppose, do you make an open event safe for our Leader of the Free World to share the air with us?
Despite this incredible security, there was still a crazy man wrapped around the top of an Atlantic white cedar, right in front of us at the Mall. Security couldn't get him down. They had had to build a special platform around him. A ladder against the trunk remained as testimony to their attempts to dislodge him.
I guess they concluded that he wasn't armed and that, in the balance, leaving him there was better than risking his or the tree's life. He droned on, a thin muffled voice, begging us to all agree with him; while our little group in the sea of humanity, my direct circle of contact, muttered our frustration that no one could silence him. We couldn't; the police couldn't.
We did all take our turns observing the real consequences of free speech - the clear voice of our president obscured slightly by the wailings of a madman and obscured a little bit more by our efforts to shut the madman up. I could hear Obama when I cupped my ears, but the occasional angry “hey police, do your job” in front of me made it harder.
And so, the burly man, white haired and clinging to both the tree and his sign that declared something, swayed like a baby bear from his prickly pinnacle while we listened in the nippy air.
* * *
If you are wondering was it worth it, standing in the slight cold, slightly uncomfortable, while we were crushed softly by slightly irritable bodies straining to hear our president, the answer is yes.
Sure, we saw most of it on a glorified TV screen, but it was a screen that we were all sharing, almost a million of us, there to usher in a second historic four years. We were there to represent the sea of humanity.
I was there along with physicians from around the country representing Doctors for America; we and many other doctor organizations have just completed a huge effort to get our voices heard in Washington following the Newtown massacre.
We are still spinning from the success we are having. Our effort grew from an email conversation. We created an online petition that gathered more than 4,000 physician signatures; met with Vice-President Joe Biden to come up with solutions; and heard Obama's declaration of commitment to real changes.
It's not over yet, of course, but we are used to that.
As a physician group, we have been working hard in support of the flawed Affordable Care Act and had just discovered the National Rifle Association's hand in preventing data gathering by the government to monitor gun violence.
And so, we were gathering for the weekend to enjoy our small steps of victory in the big fight toward a better and healthier medical system.
* * *
We are all in this together, citizens, all sharing the same needs - for food, shelter, and love - on a planet that is running out of resources and filling up with carbon.
We are on the island, but there is no other island like it in the sea, so those spaceships are not our salvation. We can no longer migrate away from our problems or disagreements. We are our own salvation - through our unity.
That woman with the pin, on the train, shared a beautiful image with me, of two groups around their bowls of food, all with spoons too long to feed themselves. The ones who tried only grew weaker as they starved, but those who fed each other thrived.
Just as in 1776, we are faced with the need to experiment. This time, we need even more agreement, more cooperation. We no longer have the infinite physical frontiers of mountain and prairie, ocean and air, to expand into. We have instead to explore the frontiers of cooperation, shared sacrifice, and inner introspection.
We can no longer hide in the false assurance of infinite growth and consumption. It's time to stop playing chicken, stop waiting to see who can hold out longest with their cards, or their money, close to their chests and hope someone else steps up to do the right thing.
Doctors, oil companies, steel workers, teachers, CEOs, politicians, students, mommies, cashiers: we all have to agree that it's one planet, one people.
* * *
In his speech, President Obama invoked the Declaration of Independence as if he read my mind. I am sick of the Constitution, or at least the temptation it holds out to those who want to say it means something more in their favor. The Declaration, on the other hand? That is ours. We the people.
This democracy continues to be an experiment, having started way back when the peaceful transfer of power was less sure than a war. And the Declaration lays it all out for us: what we should expect and whom we should expect it from.
We the people: That mob I was part of on the mall, sure. But also the educator on the plane on the way down, the driver who brought us to our hotel, the young woman on the train with the Obama pin.
What I am seeing more and more is engagement, and that is what I saw last weekend. I am no historian, but I love history, my story, our story.