Ghosts

Barack H. Obama is now President of the United States of America. How cool is that?

It's a good thing, but that's not enough. I want to feel the elation I saw on all those shining young faces. Instead I just feel... subdued. Not so cool.

I wish I was twenty years younger. I wish I was a teenager and Joey was alive and we were both young again and connected to this moment in exactly the way so many younger people are today and seem to have been throughout Obama's campaign. I want to feel as good, as invigorated, as I'm sure they do. Through most of Obama's run, instead of Yes We Can! what I felt was, Well... Maybe. We'll See. I was not a true believer. He seemed to me so young to be reaching for what he was reaching for. I wasn't convinced he was ready yet I knew I wouldn't want to see him lose. At some points I was actually annoyed--couldn't he wait another few years? What was his hurry?

And now I am happy that he is President and I have high hopes for him--who does not? who could not with all that is at stake? I think he will be a great president. Because we need him to be.

But Uncle Larry has died, just Saturday. And his passing, a sadness in and of itself, is another reminder of all those missing places at the family table, all the people I've loved, and admired, who didn't make it to see this moment of history. Mark told me that well over a year ago Larry had predicted Obama's win--and not a pathetic, controversial, squeaker of a win, either, but a decisive sweep. That was a remarkably confident forecast given that more than a year ago no such thing seemed so certain. Who knew? Who was Barack Obama?

Who indeed? Who was George W. Bush except the privileged wastrel son of an accomplished father and a powerful political family? What did he know about running a country, about global statecraft, about leadership?

Not so much, turns out. And many, many of us are the poorer for it.

I wish--I know I said this already--I wish my brother Joe was here. I'd like so much to be talking to him today and have him talking to me, telling me what this day meant to him. If he were alive so many things would be different. We'd have all been at his and Maria's house having brunch, the televisions would be going, broadcasting the Inaugural, and everyone would be wandering all over the place, hugging, eating, and driving Colin and Allegra to distraction with endless grown-up questions about what they thought of all this, what they'd remember best. Family and friends. There would be good food and the dogs would be frantic with happiness, making affectionate nuisances of themselves. We would banter and console, argue and laugh. Conversations would spill out onto the porches. We would remember. We would eat some more. I would eat a lot.

I'm going for a walk. It's cold. But I need some fresh air and solitude. This room is crowded with ghosts.