QUEUING FOR CHANGE

“This is Barack's day, not ours, so I'm willing to wait as long as I need to,” said a middle-aged woman to her husband, who was grumbling about the line-cutters in the Third St tunnel. She seemed to speak for the 2m Americans who made their determined way to Washington, DC to behold Obama's inauguration.

Some 240,000 free tickets were distributed for the swearing-in ceremony on Capitol Hill, and I was lucky enough to get one, having worked on the campaign in Philadelphia. Unsurprisingly, the patience and fortitude our new president has demanded of his voters were already necessary.

From 9am till 11am, I stood in the nearly stationary "Purple Line", which snaked its way through the Third Street tunnel. Packed with swarms of ski jackets and fur coats as far as the eye could see, the effect was awkwardly portentous. Stan, Sam and Dan, brothers from Soda Springs, Idaho, who trundled behind me, spent their time describing to their nervous mother the scenes of panic and carnage that would ensue if a wall of fire was to charge its way through the enlarged concrete pipeline. But the risk of sudden death was worth it, clearly, if only for a glimpse of "The One".

Barack and Michelle Obama That evening I spent another two hours shuffling in a queue for the Youth Ball, which was equally perilous for its mix of freezing temperatures and formal dresses. But this time was also rewarded, not only by the First Couple's visit and romantic dance on stage, but also by Kanye West's crowd-revving set and the MTV lot's D-list celebs sprinkled throughout, who dutifully flashed their pearly teeth and gyrated in thigh-grazing skirts. We almost didn't mind the queues to buy drinks coupons that preceded the queues to procure drinks: $9 and 25 minutes netted me a gin and tonic that I discovered too late was in fact a vodka lemonade.

In England, when we queue, we really queue. There's a sense of etiquette that accompanies the satisfying feeling that you're making progress, with every step accomplishing something. Perhaps this is the true Audacity of Hope, because most of the lines I waited in yesterday were bridges to nowhere. Thousands with tickets never made it to their designated Inaugural sections before the gates were closed. But despite the occasional moaners that cropped up in every queue, there was a remarkable sense of acceptance. An auspicious start for America's new president, it would seem.

~ KITTY KALETSKY

Picture credit: anslatadams (via Flickr)