Friends and acquaintances in South Brewster County responded in a variety of ways to the news that I was going to Washington, D.C. to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama. Considering that Obama carried Brewster County by a slight margin (1970 votes to McCain’s 1855), it’s not surprising that reactions were so evenly split. Although our differences of political opinions have not led to open civil war, in recent years the US has been divided by a sense of underlying discord.

Had I been more articulate at those moments when my decision to go to Washington was challenged, I would have quoted Abraham Lincoln, from his first inaugural address, delivered on the brink of our bitter civil war: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection.”

No matter your political persuasion, you cannot deny that the inauguration of our first black president is an unparalleled moment of racial reconciliation in America.

Here is my personal version of that historic moment.

Election night, Terlingua Ghost Town: the birth of the journey

The Boathouse Bar and Grill parking lot in the Terlingua Ghost Town is packed as I drive by on my way home from work. I have just been to the community center to cast my vote. With no TV at home, I plan to monitor the results online. Stopping by the Boathouse to socialize over a beer to watch the political pundits pontificate is tempting, but then again, it will take hours before a victor is declared.

I continue home and settle in on my front porch to enjoy the light on the Chisos Mountains turning varied splendorous shades of red before dinner. An hour later, I hear cheers and animated shouting from the Boathouse throng echoing across Dirty Woman Gulch. “Is it over already? I wonder as I move to check online for updates. Aaaarrgh! What is wrong with my computer? My poor old iMac is struggling to load the data-intense websites of PBS, CNN, C-SPAN, or NBC.

I make a quick call to the Boathouse to find out about all the excitement. The bartender is frazzled, “I’ve got a full bar here! There are lots of numbers and graphics on the screen. They were cheering for OBAMA [pronouncing the candidate’s name as if it rhymes with Alabama]. Gotta go!”

Finally I connect to streaming audio broadcast from National Public Radio and I learn that Obama has carried Pennsylvania, a key swing state. For the first time in the many years since I have been without broadcast TV, I rue my lack of access to mass media. It is still early, but I sense the blue tide is rising.

My sister Jane, an enthusiastic Obama supporter who lives in Washington DC, would certainly be home watching the returns, but there is no answer when I call. I call her cell phone. “Allô. Oui?” she answers, in her perky French accent.

“Where are you?” I ask, straining to hear her over the noisy revelry in the background. “Watching the returns and celebrating with champagne!”

Jane teaches at the French International School in DC and iss with colleagues from France, Sweden, Mexico, and Algeria. “Why don’t you come up for the Inauguration? You haven’t been to DC for five years, ever since you moved out to the Big Bend. If you can make it to an airport, I can take care of the flight.”

The stage is set.

Monday, January 19, Washington, DC: the getting of the inaugural “ticket”

Snow flurries gently as the early morning flight from Austin lands in Baltimore, Maryland. The flight attendant acknowledges those of us on board who will attend the inauguration with an enthusiastic “Stay warm and be safe.”

Very few of the thousands, even millions, expected to attend actually will actually hold a ticket to the event. Most are planning to show up and brave the cold with the teeming masses on the National Mall or along the parade route down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.

240,000 tickets were distributed to members of Congress who were then free to hand them out to their constituents as they saw fit.

In November, I had requested inaugural tickets online from the office of Ciro Rodriquez, my Congressman in Washington, thinking that I would be one of a handful, if not the only one, of his constituents from South Brewster County making the trip.

John Waters (publisher of this newspaper) had a better idea; he was working on obtaining a press pass and, with the assistance of Congressman Rodriguez, would later be granted one. (Eventually, John gave me a letter authorizing me to pick up the Gazette’s ticket/press pass through the office of Edward Pesce, Director of the Senate Periodical Press Gallery, as a reporter for this newspaper.) What a coup! A ticket to the inauguration was golden.

Accordingly, my first mission upon arriving in Washington is to go to the Russell Senate Office Building to show my identification and credentials. Downtown DC is abuzz, despite the wintry weather. People are in the streets everywhere, taking pictures, smiling, trying to stay with their tour groups, the marching bands rehearsing for the parade, stray floats maneuvering to the staging grounds and police at every corner directing traffic.

“Obama Fever” is in full pitch.

My brother–in-law Philippe curses the congestion, more out of amazement than anger, and drops Jane and me off on Constitution Avenue, catty-corner from the Capitol. Seeing the long lines of bundled-up humans stretching from every entrance of the Senate Office Building, Jane and I plan to take the Metro home so that Philippe won’t have to wait.

The security screening of every person who goes into the building to pick up press passes or tickets from his/her Senator is a slow process, but the mood is cheerful and friendly despite the cold. (Tickets were not mailed and were issued only in person to the one whose ID matched the fulfilled request.)

While we’re in line, a young white man asks Jane, the savvy DC resident, about subway access. He has come from Indiana, worked with the Obama campaign in Ohio, and is here to reap the reward of hard-fought votes that carried that swing state.

Alfie, an exuberant African American woman from Texarkana wearing huge sunglasses, gives me her card and wants to make sure I know that she had campaigned in the Arkansas and Texas primaries for Obama against Hillary Clinton.

“I came here from the most remote corner of Texas,” I offer. Alfie is certain that she passed through Big Bend on I-20. “No, you must be thinking of Big Spring….”

The line inches forward steadily and soon we are inside the overheated interior of the majestic building, replete with a rotunda, marble columns, and stately hallways. Some senatorial offices are packed with revelers and obviously in Open House party mode.

Not so in Senator McCain’s office, where, we notice in passing, a sole glum aide sitting, lost in faraway thoughts, his chin resting in his hands.

We head for a large caucus room converted to an assembly line for press people, divided into radio/television/film and periodical publications. Mr. Pesce, Director of Periodical Press, and his assistant Rob, are gracious and efficient, but obviously weary from three days of dealing with the logistics and egos of 4,000 representatives of the news media attending the international super event.

A ticket in the Orange Section 16 is waiting for me: I have a seat! I think of my hosts, Philippe and Jane, who are planning on braving the crushing crowds on the National Mall. Mustering my courage, I inquire about “leftover” tickets.

“Extras will be distributed today, immediately after the 3 pm deadline, on a first-come first-serve basis,” says Rob.

“Is it possible I could get two more?”

Rob is non-committal but encouraging.

We re-button our coats, adjust our hats and scarves, and set out for the short walk to Union Station to catch the Red Line subway. It strikes me then that the whole of America has come to Washington DC, it seems, and is concentrated in and around Union Station. We are not only walking against and through intersecting walls of humankind, most of whom are trying to connect with someone or something else, but also with a wall of people arriving at the station with rolling suitcases and bulky backpacks.

Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, a provocative and important public intellectual, sporting his signature frizzled afro hairstyle, strolls by in an apparent daze, surrounded by admirers taking pictures with their cell phones.

Throngs surge towards the automated fare machines. We fill our commemorative Barack Obama Inauguration “SmartTrip” cards and head down to board one of the trains – running every 30 seconds!

At my sister’s home, next to the National Zoo in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of DC, we have time for homemade soup and smoked salmon sandwiches before the mad rush through ever-worsening congestion back to the belly of the beast.

To quote Philippe, Jane drives ”like a Parisian” (Dear Reader, I will leave that to your imagination). Once again, we wait in line to get into the building, then rush up four flights of palatial marble staircase, and sprint down the long hallway to find a lengthening line of waiting journalists. Some have their unwieldy TV cameras strapped over their shoulder, many fiddle with their iPhones or Blackberries, texting messages back and forth, while others write in tiny notebooks.

Ultimately, two more tickets are issued to me. We head back to the Mount Pleasant row house to relax, visit, eat, drink, gloat, and pore over the details of the logistical plans for the next day.

Tuesday January 20, Capitol Hill: the Presidential inauguration

The Washington Post provided in-depth guides with copious maps in anticipation of the large crowds of both locals and out-of-towners expected for the inaugural ceremony and parade.

The Metro opened at 4 am to accommodate the multitudes trying to get to the Capitol area for the program scheduled to begin at 11:30 am.

However, residents living with a 3-mile radius of the Capitol were encouraged to walk, as subway cars are expected to be filled with those coming in from outlying areas. Attendees were also advised to dress warmly, as the weather forecast calls for biting cold (in the twenties), made even colder by wind chill. Not a welcome prediction for a desert rat, so I layer and layer and layer: three pairs of socks, two pairs of silk long johns under my pants, three layers of silk under a wool sweater, two pairs of gloves, two wool scarves, a heavy wool pea coat and, to top it off, two knit caps. I don’t think anyone will mistake me for Beyoncé.

Despite 5,000 portable toilets, the Inauguration Guide advised to refrain from liquid intake, recommending fruit for hydration. I pack a tangerine, nuts, a compact digital camera, photo i.d., one small bottle of water, a miniature notebook, a pen, and a satellite phone, in case cellular service is interrupted.

We gulp down coffee and hurry out to the street. The plan is to walk to the nearest bus stop in hopes of whittling down the 2.75-mile walk in the bitterly cold early morning air. What a brilliant idea.

The bus fills up at the first stop with other bundled specimens like us heading downtown. We sit next to a smiling black woman from DC, with her adorable, if less than awake, 4-year-old granddaughter, Shayna, sitting in her lap. Jane comments to them about the historic nature of this event and how, despite lacking understanding of its importance at present, the little girl will be able to tell this tale with pride from her rocking chair many years on.

No one had to elaborate on what Jane means by “historic;” everyone understood that a huge race barrier had been crossed, and yet another step has been taken towards fulfillment of the American dream that “all men are created equal.”

The conversation continues, and we learn that the others around us are also part of this woman’s family: two daughters who live in DC, Shayna’s parents, and her daughter and son-in law who have traveled from Atlanta.

They are delighted to learn that Jane and I are sisters and that I have come all the way from Texas. Her son–in-law Kameron asks if Jane and I are twins. The sisters want to take our picture.

By now the bus is getting more and more packed and we are separated from all of them except Kameron. He tells us that he is a Jamaican who immigrated to Georgia. Tears swelled in his eyes as he looks at his daughter and confides that he no longer fears she will be treated as a second-class citizen.

Kameron asks me if I would take a picture with his camera. I think he means a picture of himself with Shayna, to capture the memorable bus ride en route to the epoch-making inauguration.

“No,” he says. “I want a picture of me with your sister, the two of us together. That’s what Obama is all about.”

Last stop is K Street, several blocks north of the parade route, where rows and rows of vendors hawk Obama memorabilia – hats, t-shirts, puppet gloves, posters, video and audio recordings, ear muffs, mugs, sunglasses and hand-warmers.

We are still some distance from the Capitol, so although the parade-viewing crowd is gathering here, we have yet to reach the massive swarm assembled for the swearing-in ceremony.

Spirits are high as we entered the Third Street Tunnel to cross over to the south side of the Capitol Grounds in order to reach the Orange ticket screening entrance. Emerging from the tunnel, we perforate a web of humankind, all part of a complex network of entangled Blue and Orange ticket holders, each looking for the right line, twisted up by non-ticket holders streaming from the Capitol South Metro Station towards the general public viewing area.

Sirens wail, helicopters thrum, defense jets rumble, bullhorns blare, and through it all the people smile and laugh in delight at the once-in-a-lifetime circumstance in which we find ourselves.

By 9 am, we find the end of the “Orange Line;” those already in line tell us there is no end. The line loosely snakes many times around a grassy plaza. Those of us who have been there for hours try to discourage those who innocently cut in front.

The urge to chat and share with all around is irrepressible.

Thomas, a tall young African American man in an elegant long winter coat moves forward slowly with his 8-year-old son Marshall. He tells us of his work with the Obama campaign in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, all critical swing states. Again, the magnitude of this momentous occasion for his son is evoked.

My sister expresses her appreciation of this pivotal point in history. “I grew up in the segregated South, Baton Rouge in the 60’s.”

“And I grew up in segregated Chicago, in the 80’s,” says Thomas.

Just then, Julian Bond, Chairman of the Board of the NAACP and long-time civil-rights activist, walks past us. Security screening is brisk. Anticipation is building as the hour nears 10 am.

We continue on the final leg to the gated Orange Section 16, alongside actor Stephen Baldwin, actress Ellen Burnstyn, and hundreds of others. At long last, we reach our seats, just in front of the south wing of the red, white, and blue flag-draped Capitol Building. The immense dome gleams in the sunshine against a bright blue, now cloudless, sky.

At 11 am, with music by the United States Marine Band, the cheerful well-heeled gathering in this invitation-only area quivers and buzzes. The couple next to me from Connecticut wears full-length fur coats and fur hats, and UGG boots.

Two smartly-dressed older black gentlemen in the row in front of us observe a reverent silence. Later we introduced ourselves to them and learn from one, Wil Haygood, a writer for the Washington Post, that he was with Eugene Allen, a former butler at the White House, for more almost 40 years – “some of those years during an era of brutal segregation.” (The next day we are able to read Mr. Haygood’s story about Mr. Allen: washingtonpost.com/style).

Members of the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Inaugural Ceremonies, and other dignitaries take the stage. The multitudes on the Mall chant; “OH! BAH! MAH!!” vibrates in the still-frigid air.

Michelle Obama appears, dressed in gold, radiating like the sun, to the gasps of the crowd. Sasha and Malia positively bounce into view. Barack Obama emerges to thunderous applause.

Soon, Aretha Franklin brings tears to my eyes with her soulful rendition of “America the Beautiful.”

The moment has arrived. The Oath is administered, albeit incorrectly, to the 44th President. “It’s been a long time coming,” and “I thought I would never see this day,” the gentlemen in front of us say as we exchange high fives.

Now comes the sobering speech in which President Obama beseeches Americans to “put away childish things,” to embrace old values, to rise to the challenge with “virtue and hope,” and to enter into a “new era of responsibility.”

We look into the eyes of our neighbors, clasp hands, cry and smile, nodding our heads with exuberance.

A single bird soars in flight above the Capitol Dome.

Shivers. Joy. Celebration. Hope…Indeed, LOVE, as invoked by the poet Elizabeth Alexander, is in the air as we exit the Capitol grounds, immersed in the humanity that is the People of the United States of America.