Overcome with emotion

I am. I really am. I'm stuck in Boston due to the snow in Raleigh; even if I could have made it home (doubtful), no one could have come to collect me from the airport.

Being stuck here is not the problem, however. I have a fine hotel room, good company, will eat a great dinner (back to Oishii we go), and have been able to work all day. As a bonus, I got to watch the inauguration live, something I would not have been able to do had the Raleigh snowstorm not kept me here.

The inauguration is the problem. It really got to me. For the first time since my teen years, despite all the intervening decades have taught me, almost against my will I find that I believe again in a politician. I know President Obama is no saint, but I honestly believe he is a smart, idealistic, clever man who may continue to make history. I wish I could participate in some meaningful way, but I really can't; employing people, writing, and taking care of those I love is what I can manage and must be enough.

Obama is also the first president to be younger than me. Intimations of mortality are all around me, and today they draw too close and I realize that I have accomplished so very little, almost nothing, really.

And then there's the article I read. I love basketball. I miss playing it. I was never any good, not really, but I've always loved it, though in the past decade or so from a great distance. So it was that when Bill (thanks!) pointed me to this article on this day, I could not help but be touched yet again. I loved pickup basketball, loved the fact that who you were was how you played, that nothing else mattered, and I still do, though it's been years since I've stepped onto a court.

I love that our President loves basketball, listens to music I know, uses technology, and has so many other points of connection to me and others like me.

Most of all, though, I love that he seems to understand the enormity of the challenges we all face, is willing to tackle them, and has good ideas about doing so.

Let's all join in and help him change this country--and the world--for the better.