I’ve had these buttons for quite a while but was waiting for the right time to share them–and as it happened, that magical day falls on a Sunday.
First of all, it’s astonishing that I’m able to get out of Houston for an overnight trip to Austin, probably the Texas city I’m most disposed to like because I have a fondness for college towns, plus it’s the capital where one of the most colorful legislatures imaginable has entertained and appalled the state since the dawn of time. (See: Molly Ivins.)
I was here for the closing event of the Texas Book Festival, a discussion and presentation by Pete Souza. Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer for President Obama and the Director of the White House Photo Office. He was also an Official White House Photographer for President Reagan.
I’ve featured a few of his photographs on my blog through the years because I was a devoted follower of his White House account on Flickr during President Obama’s eight years in office. I knew I’d miss him acutely after January 2017, but then he showed up on Instagram, where his account became an interesting point/counter point between events and attitudes of the current administration and the previous one. Almost immediately he was lauded for his ability to “throw shade,” a then-unfamiliar term to Souza but one at which he excels.
For almost two years he has provided not only a look back and a unique perspective on the present, but he and his Instagram followers make me feel hopeful about the future. Almost daily, I find myself disgusted, horrified, or ashamed because of this White House–and sadly, a majority of Congress, and Souza’s Instagram account is by turns funny, poignant, and healing.
Those are also the words I’d used to describe his presentation tonight. To be in a filled venue for one night with people who see things much the same way I do was a huge boost to my spirit. And the stories Pete Souza told from his intimate perspective of Barack Obama from his days in the Senate to his two terms in the White House–increased my respect and gratitude for such a leader and his family beyond anything I could have expected. President Obama’s interaction with the American people–whether children, our troops, anguished parents, excited voters–and with other leaders around the world speak so much to his character, grace, and intelligence.
But as Pete Souza has taught me, it’s not enough to look back. It’s not enough to look at current events through any lens but our own hearts and minds. WE MUST VOTE. Amidst all the noise and lies and diversions and ugliness, there is still goodness, still hope, still belief in the real American dream, not the one being distorted beyond recognition under coded language that is part of the worst of us.
Vote, and please vote for the best among us from the best within you.
And while you’re at it, get the new book:
and the first one:
