Obama Renaissance

The Obama Portraits aren’t going to change anything. We don’t need them in the same way we need good schools and safe communities and flushing toilets and and free lunch and free health care and a rebirth of kindness. Okay, when I put it that way I have to admit I’m wrong. The Obama Portraits are game changers.

I love art. I love the feeling of standing in front of art. I love looking at the canvas, knowing the artist stood there, paint on her brush, paint on her hand, paint everywhere.

I don’t know what it means. Or how to explain it. But I know how it feels to have the part of me I had in childhood awaken.

I know how I’m supposed to behave. I’ve been practicing my entire adult life. But I miss recess. I miss the feeling of going out into the cold looking for a snowball fight instead of scraping my windshield before starting the torturous commute to work.

A beautiful black man. A beautiful black woman. A community organizer who ascended to the presidency. A self-made attorney who gave up her day job as the family’s breadwinner to support her husband’s childhood dream.

It was just a dream…