A beautiful day

I got up this morning and looked out the bedroom window. Time: 7:01 a.m. What a beautiful day!
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The sun just peeking above the horizon. The sky was already blue. The crescent moon was hanging in the south, visible between the icicles hanging from the eaves. The thermometer on the front porch may have read 0F, but no matter. This, Jan. 20, 2009, would be a beautiful day.

I went to work as the crowd swelled in Washington, D.C. Our basketball team had won a big game last night, and I had to get caught up on the other scores and write part of the story. The coach from our other team would probably be calling--if he wanted to talk, I would be there.

But I also had the live stream from CNN on my computer, and as the start of the ceremony neared, I was debating whether to go home (just a block away) to watch it there or to watch it in the office.

It was a hard call. I have been looking forward to this day so much and for so long. Back on the day after the 2004 election, I wrote a friend: "I wore black today," I started.

Over two years ago, I saw my first Bush countdown clock, showing how much time remained--900-some days, X hours, X minutes, X seconds at that point--in the Bush presidency. I almost put one on my blog. It seemed like forever.

At about the same time, I did order a black plastic wristband. It read "I did not vote 4 Bush." I put a picture of it on my blog ...
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I wore it for a while.

The 2008 campaign started fairly early in 2007. It lasted forever and a day. The long journey--about as long as Frodo's in "Lord of the Rings"--ended last Nov. 4.

One wait ended. Another began, the 2 1/2 months to Inauguration Day. That also seemed to last forever, what with the financial crisis and stock market struggles. Why can't it just be over?

On Tuesday, the wait was over, and a new day began. Today is the day. Sure, I wish I was in Washington. But I can't. I'm here. So I'll watch it here.

The thing to remember now is patience. The change most of us have prayed for will not happen right away. But it will come. Our country took the wrong turn eight years ago, and anyone who has missed an exit on the freeway knows how difficult and time-consuming it is to get to where we should have gone in the first place.

Or, think of it like our beastly cold weather we dealt with last week. Several days of 24-hour-a-day subzero weather. It finally ended, Not that spring is here yet. Spring is still a long way off. But we're a little closer to it now.

Patience. Spring will come. Better times will come. Our generation's FDR is moving into the White House, in the midst of a national crisis much like FDR stepped into in 1933, "The only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself," he told our country.

It was a historic day at a crisis point for our nation. Today is another historic day, being watched just as closely all over the world. As someone who rarely takes a day off work, I think it's time to leave, go home and listen closely to what Barack Obama has to tell me.