Barack Obama

“On this day, we have chosen hope over fear. “
-Barack Obama


January 23, 2009

I watched the inauguration for the first time in my life, accompanied by Sailor, age 5. I cried with hope and with relief that we finally have a real person running our country. A person who really “gets it,” a person not even a decade older than I. What he said above, this strikes the core of my soul, as I have felt nothing but fear since the birth of my first child 7 ½ years ago … since the World Trade Center exploded and collapsed in front of our eyes. Since I first heard about North Korea’s desperate hatred for America and the range of its missiles. Since a lawyer spelled out the details of standard custody and visitation arrangements. I have felt nothing but fear. Barack Obama’s pledge to help our country out of every last one of its messes makes me feel hope. Real hope. For the first time in many years. No. for the first time ever. Because before all “that” happened I had no reason not to assume all was well and my future was secure. I had no need for hope.

Mac’s wiggly top tooth twists around during our television viewing of the Inaugural Ball. For days I have been asking him, “Give me your tooth.” This time I reach in and pluck it like a rose from his mouth. For the 2nd time in 7 years he is left with just one tooth up top. But while he looked weird, funny, like Oliver Dragon from Kukla Fran and Ollie then, he looks like an adorable, freckled, bespectackled, floppy-haired 2nd grader this time. It’s cuteness at its peak.

In bed that night he snuggles up close and tight. “I’ll see if you are the tooth fairy or not, Mom.” Sailor squeezes in on me from the other side. When they are asleep I do my work. In the morning Mac feels beneath his pillow and retrieves the tiny blue felt pouch I have made for him. (“What if the tooth fairy takes the pouch?!” he asked last night.) I have to unfasten the gold safety pin. Mac correctly identifies two ½ dollars.

Obama is working hard and we are back to life as usual, but with a sense of purpose. Or rather, with a sense that we need to seek a purpose.

Mac does not have school today. Last night I explained to my boys that they will not complain about their activities today. Sailor goes willingly to gymnastics, Mac right behind him. He also doesn’t blink about having to go down to his preschool class. I spirit Mac across the street for lunch while Sailor is in class. He never knows we have left the building. It is our little secret.

Neither of my boys understands why I walk to the east to go to Judo class. We walk for nearly a block. “Why are we going this way?” “Where are we going?” “I don’t recognize this way.” “I never walked over here before.” “How do we get to Judo from here?” Oh thee of little faith in their mama.

Tonight I am looking at Mac’s new smile. So much of his face, his unique look, has been about his smile. His overbite and the two little teeth popping out over his lower lip, separated by the gap that all baby teeth have. And yet I see his new smile and accept it so easily. A gap-toothed smile. He closes is teeth together now to show it. It is so different. So cute. It is a new look and just as lovable as before.

Sailor is in a very complimenting mood tonight and lately, for that matter. “I like your voice, Mommy.” He tells me, “You smell good. You are warm and soft. I like your face and even when you are a little bit old I like your body because you look young.”
“You look 32,” Mac chimes in. Sailor has been clingy of late, but then so have I. There is something wonderfully loving between us. Mac is jealous. He is away all day and when he comes back … he is just not small and soft and sweet-smelling any more. And Sailor still is.

Mac is wearing a green fuzzy pajama top and brown corduroy pants. I ask him about it. He tells me that a StarWars character dresses in these colors. When he says this I wonder when children go from thinking they can change their clothes to become a character they admire to feeling deep emotional pain from the knowledge that no matter what they wear or how they style their hair they are who they are and will never be their idol. I wonder when reality becomes reality for children.

Saturday, January 24, 2009
I find a slip of paper with a note from my sister. She had asked Mac: Do eyebrows serve a purpose or are they left over from our evolution from apes? To which Mac replied: [They are left over from] Our revolutionary apes.