A New Day. A New Dawn.
National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman reciting “The Hill We Climb
@iamwellandgood
A new year always shines a light on what is old, new, and becoming. I believe there isn’t light at the end of the tunnel – instead, WE are the light, shining through moment to moment as best as we can. Meeting each moment in fullness and fierceness. Allowing life force energy to rise within us to help us move and love forward, in spite of darkness and broken-ness. Like many of us, I was deeply shaken by what our family saw unfold at The Capitol in real time leading up to January 6th. I have had a hard time finding the words or energy to write or blog – until now. Pain doesn’t have to have the last word. We do. By writing and telling new stories, making poetry out of it all, making sense of it all – in spite of it all. Which made January 20th and President Biden’s Inauguration feel like a healing, hopeful beam of bright white light. Like a north star leading us to a new day, a new dawn, and a new chapter.
@ladygaga
@huffpost
Capitol Police Officer, Hero, and Madame Vice-President Escort Eugene Goodman @huffpost
“The American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us…
Here's the thing about life. There's no accounting for what fate will deal you…”
- President Joe Biden
From Lady Gaga belting out the National Anthem like a glorious rally cry while swathed in a stunning billowing crimson tulle skirt with a gold dove heralding peace and love; to JLo’s killer ruffled silk blouse with suffragette and revolutionary-inspired nods, reassuring us that “this land is our land” and imploring us to “get loud”; it was refreshing to see blended multicultural, multi-generational leaders, pop culture icons, and their families mirroring what America looks like, feels like, and sounds like right now. How remarkable and symbolic that the kid with the stutter beat the playground bully at the end of the day. With his own brand of Delaware kindness, goodness, grace and “American” greatness. Leading by the power of example, not by the abuse of power. Nice guys won the day today, and Biden seemed called to meet this moment in our shared history and humanity.
@hellogiggles
"Una nación, bajo Dios, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos. One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
- Jennifer Lopez
It was breathtaking seeing Vice-President Harris ascend, taking the historic oath with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotamayor. After 232 years of waiting for someone who “looks like us” to make it to the top, there she was, beaming brightly in bi-partisan purple. I felt seen. Most importantly, I could see a new future, for me and Other Brown Girls of all ages watching from home. I smiled through tears seeing the VP hand-in-hand with her grand-nieces, thinking of all the OBGs imprinting this moment in their hearts for generations to come, years later saying dreamily “I was there when…” Freedom of speech, creative expression, and modern idealism in motion, moving us forward. How do we create a moment that feels new, now, and of these times, of our times? Through the power of ideas, strength, solidarity, and modern everyday activism, patriotism and optimism that vibrates as universal uniting energy, not mandated or manipulated division.
“When day comes
we ask ourselves,
where can we find light
in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade...”
@bustle
@agirlhasnopresident
“And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished...”
news.yahoo.com
What seemed like a divine supernova transcending out of nowhere? Two words. Amanda Gorman. I felt starstruck by 22-year old Gorman’s extraordinary, commanding presence and elegant poise, emanating like a rising sun from behind the presidential sealed podium in her chic canary yellow coat. I learned that it was actually Dr. Jill Biden who first saw Gorman and invited her to speak. I was touched learning that Gorman had overcome a lifelong speech impediment, using her writing as a way to work through her speech pathology.
In her refreshing interview with Anderson Cooper, who was equally speechless and starstruck by her, I learned that she was halfway done with her poem when January 6th broke. She did a deep dive on past historical moments, poems, and orators like Fredrick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln who worked to unite our nation at the brink during the darkest of times. She also simultaneously consumed pop culture, reading texts and tweets for inspiration. Gorman shared that up until as recently as two years ago, she had struggled to pronounce her r’s and that she was inspired by Hamilton’s “Aaron Burr, Sir” to practice her speech pathology.
@eleanor.kubacki
With a deep commitment to her craft, Gorman did the hard work, staying original and true to her voice and vision and the moment. The power of words, words that until now, had been violated and filtered as fake news and misinformation. Gorman said she wanted “to re-claim, re-purify, and re-sanctify” the power of words and stories. I could feel her energizing, healing power expressed in waves of fluid gestures, as if she was lifting her words one by one from the page and setting them free from her tapered fingertips, exalted. It felt like spoonfuls of medicine. I was taken when she shared “I needed to write the type of poem that I needed to write, to see, from someone who looked like me.” Literature is empathy in motion. As Joan Didion famously said: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder…We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices…”
@refinery29
@jordanzaslow
Against the backdrop of solemn lanterns standing like soldiers in boxed light formation honoring those who tragically passed due to the pandemic, it was breathtaking to see all of the points of light, hope, and healing. To look for the stars in what has felt like an unshakable, unfathomable infinite abyss. Fireworks banged in a new era and New Year, illuminating the nation’s capitol like colorful sparklers bursting with joy, giving birth to exponential cascading stars in the brisk, inky January sky.
“Let the globe, if nothing else,
say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried...”
Watching John Legend croon at his baby grand, like a cool reflective pool with Lincoln looking on from the distance, I took in the moment with my half-brown kid, seeing the convergence of political, pop, cross-cultural identity burning bright. We are physically, politically disconnected, and hungry for healing and a new way forward. With bright voices and bolder ways of telling our story as we wait for a new day to dawn. What have these times shown us? How will future generations write about us? How will we meet the moment and light the way with the gift of each new day?
@johnlegend
“When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we're brave enough to see it
If only we're brave enough to be it”- Amanda Gorman
www.pantagraph.com