Hope or Hype

The leaves in St. Louis are just starting to turn. It's almost as if they know it; the chilly winds of change are blowing. The sort of symbolism I see in these leaves makes me hopeful, but they foreshadow the unknown, something new and different. And I think we all know this. Or at least, we hope that a few speckled and crunchy leaves actually signal the coming of autumn and not some fluke coldspell followed by another six weeks of summer.

Saturday morning marked the third time I had seen Barack Obama speak and although his speech was pretty standard, this appearance was of such monumental proportions that it meant so much more than usual. The settings for the speech were epic in both magnitude and proportion; excitement and anticipation ran high, you could feel it in the air. I had never really seen so many hopeful and positive faces on a chilly saturday morning. These faces were framed by the stout towers of downtown St. Louis on one side and the Arch and Mississippi River on the other. And in many ways, this speech was the sort of speech I have always been dying to see: a major figure, speaking within a monumental architectural setting, to a vast crowd of adoring fans. It's the stuff of movies and history, the sort of stuff you only hear about, but never witness. But saturday, I witnessed this vast specticle of a political event and was left quite impressed by the sheer humanity of it all. On that beautiful St. Louis day, 100,000 people came out to listen to a person share their vision for the future. And they did so hoping and praying that his vision would indeed come true, with the awareness that his ability to fulfill that vision was in their hands.

But I feel a certain sense of anxiety over the whole situation. What if we lose? What if the message we're all fighting for simply isn't enough to enough people?

But then again, what if it is?

Hugz,

Antonio