Day 73 - April 2, 2009
Whenever you cry at a picture that seemingly has nothing to do with your own life, you should naturally ask yourself, "Why?". And so I did, and it didn't take me long to find the answer. The answer is that this picture obviously does not have nothing to do with our lives. It has everything to do with them.
We live by symbols and metaphors. This picture is symbolic on so many levels that its appeal possesses the quality of universality. Each of us looks at this picture with reference to our own individual experiences. Yet as we all look at it, it evokes an emotion that is common to us as a whole.
This picture is about power, privilege, courage, youth, old age, the US and the UK, and the dawning of a new day that is causing us all to rise to our higher selves.
Of all the symbols one can pull out of this picture ...
contrasts between the established order versus the new order, of wealth bestowed versus wealth earned, of age versus youth - the symbols of rising and the symbol of courage touch me the most.
I’ve often identified with Maya Angelo’s poem, “And Still I Rise,” even though I am not black:
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
My father was a factory worker, and my mother worked in the grocery store across the street from our apartment in Milwaukee. Although my family never believed college was important “for a girl,” I put myself through all four years and obtained my degree and graduate credits afterward. However, the psychological identification with our family's class - our station in life - perhaps has kept me back, or maybe it's been my own laziness. Whatever the cause, I have limited myself in my own rising.
But in this picture, I identified with Michelle Obama. I identified with the rising. I think that’s why I cried when I saw it. The picture spoke to me and inspired me to believe that while I haven’t achieved what I might have up to now, in spite of the wrinkles on my face, in spite of the money not in our pockets, there is still the hope of rising.
Behind the story of this picture is also a symbol of courage as well. Ironically, the Queen is the first to be courageous here. It was as if Michelle Obama was the Princess Di that the Queen had not dared to embrace years ago. She reached out to the First Lady. And even more courageous, of course, is Michelle Obama! It is customary not to touch the Queen. The First Lady was fully aware of that protocol, I’m sure. But in the moment of truth, Michelle Obama trusted her instinct over protocol. She trusted her own understanding of the human condition over tradition. When the Queen reached out to the First Lady, she responded, unafraid. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it well, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” The Obama’s are no “little statesmen”. It requires courage to resist the foolish consistencies that have permeated our world for too long – the consistent belief that war is the way to peace, the consistent belief that unfettered wealth benefits the masses, the consistent belief that one nation or people is superior to another, the consistent belief that “the poor we will always have with us,” - the consistent belief that the world is as it is. This is a new era, this is a new picture that has been taken, and a new rising that we are observing. Like seeing the ocean for the first time, the beauty and power of that scene touches us - all the way to tears.
