I am one of the purple ticket holders who, along with my husbandand my daughter, were among the four thousand plus inaugural ticket holders whomissed the event, sort of. We were holders of the purple tickets who were notlet through the gate. We missed the swearing in (no jumbo-tron in sight) but wedid not miss the moment. In fact, we mayhave had a fairly full measure of the spirit of things. Contrary to some reports I didn't experience much outrage amongthe folks in the purple gate line. Oh, folks were disappointed, folks werefrustrated. But in the mean time, we stood shoulder to shoulder with, and gotto know, some wonderful fellow citizens and it was an amazing moment all in all.

We stood for a very long time with a black couple from Long Island, New York, onour left and white couple for Tennesseeon our right. And we all agreed this was quite a day. We agreed there was ahopeful spirit and we had a sense of possiblity, more than we'd had in a longtime. We agreed this was a historic moment and we wouldn't have missed beingthere even though we missed seeing (or even hearing) the inaugural swearing in.

Oh, we did hear one part, the twenty-one gun salute. Weheard that just fine! Not knowing what was happening when the first blast went off;a ripple of terror went through the group, "What was that?" But immediatelyafterward people realized that this was the salute to the new president andthere was cheering and crying, and the lady next to us asked us to take apicture of her and her daughter and after which she shook our hands andcongratulated us on our new president. We, in turn, congratulated her on her newpresident.

Presidents come and go but this president representssomething very unique. To be a whiteperson standing in a crowd of predominantly African American brothers andsisters, I knew more strongly the reality that I can never feel what thismoment meant to so many of them. It was an existential shift that could onlyhappen in the happening of it. A moment of new possibility, a moment of newpurposefulness, a moment of new kinship. And then it was my moment too.

We didn't just inaugurate a new president we inaugurated anew hope for this country. We reminded each other that we need each other. Thispresident knows that, he's the one who reminds us there are no blue states andred states only the United States of America.And whether we like each other or not, whether we agree with each otheror not, we all got to get along because, what happens to one directly, happensto all indirectly. Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, and my sister's, and they aremine? I need them, they need me and together we can do what needs to bedone. Together we can get up, dust eachother off and get back at it, back at the business of creating our shared futuretogether.

Our ride in Tuesday morning usually takes no more thanfifteen, but this week we had a two and half hour ride on the D.C. metro long beforewe got to the purple gate. So we had a chance to get to know folks there too. At one point the conductor had stopped thetrain mid-tunnel and let us know that he had to wait until the train in fronthad left the station. He told us the trains were having trouble getting intoand leaving the stations because of the huge numbers of people on the platform.He warned us that there might be some quick stopping and starting. At that point the young black man fromMilwaukee next to us, whom we had gotten to know pretty well by that pointbeing packed in the way we were, hollered out, "It's all good, I think we goteach other's backs." And somebody elsecalled out, "That's the way it's gonna be from now on!" That's the way it'sgonna be from now on… we got each other's backs. We didn't just inaugurate anew president we inaugurated a new hope for this country.