I cannot overstate my happiness and relief that we have a new President and Vice President. It’s supposed to rain later today in Tucson, and if you know anything about me, you’ll know that I desperately desire it, but I am not mad that the weather stayed clear through the hour of Inauguration.

I’m not one for political speeches, and I don’t think I’ve ever watched a full inauguration before (maybe Obama’s first? I can’t remember), but I really felt the need, today, to see it happen with my own eyes, and know.

The past few weeks, or even months, I haven’t wanted to write much about politics, not because I wasn’t thinking about it (constantly), but because the moment did not seem to require any flourish of thought. Statements of fact carried so much emotion, it felt unseemly to add anything to them; I have been watching and listening to first-person accounts of the Capitol riot with undimmed fascination and horror, and I’m grateful for the journalists who have continued to tell this story, so we know.

I have been thinking: there is something to be learned from terrible things happening. It’s instructive to know that in a world of possibility, the possibilities exist in broad and endless spectrum, so you have to pay attention.

Realizing this, I should note, does not require you to be happy the bad things occurred.

Since I’ve never watched an Inauguration before (again, unless Obama?), I was surprised by how moved I was. I cried when John Roberts said, “Congratulations, Mr. President,” and I felt my shoulders relax as I listened to (now! at last!) President Biden speak, because at last there was someone in charge who did not desire the worst for us, and everyone. It is shocking what we have been used to.

I know there is a long, indeed an endless road ahead towards justice and progress and the spiritual prosperity of the nation. But perhaps now we will all have a little more energy for that journey.

Let’s begin.