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We climb the hill together

By the time you read this, Amanda Gorman’s words will likely have been played and read repeatedly in the days after she recited her poem “The Hill We Climb” during the U.S. presidential inauguration ceremony. She deserves that kind of attention, and I’m going to give her a little more. I was astounded by the beauty of her words and the wisdom and understanding that came from her 22-year-old mind.

Here in West Virginia, we know what it’s like to climb a hill. We know that feeling, somewhere in the middle where we are concentrating more on how difficult the climb has become than focusing on the goal at the top — maybe even believing we’re better off turning back. But we also know the feeling of getting to the top.

And so I was thrilled that she talked about forming a union with purpose.

“To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and

conditions of man

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us

but what stands before us …”

Gorman talked two days after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, about whether we can “live up to our own time.” It’s not about being bound by the standards and expectations of any previous era. It’s about now, and the future we build; the legacy we leave for the next generations. We want better for them, don’t we?

We do have the “power to author a new chapter.” We can move toward a future in which we look back and ask “How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?”

If we choose. It is always a choice. We CAN choose to “leave behind a country better than the one we were left with.”

I did pause at one point, in absorbing Gorman’s words yet again, to wish selfishly that she had included in her rousing finale “we will rise from the valleys and mountaintops of Appalachia,” but creative expression does not always leave room for thoroughness. Her message remains the same. We’ve got to get over thinking these messages of progress and hope do not apply to us. We WILL be part of the conversation as we move forward. Again, if we choose.

We can all rise.

“We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

and every known nook of our nation and

every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

battered and beautiful …”

Every American should listen to Gorman’s words. When they do, I hope they will choose to be inspired by them.

Becoming the best version of ourselves is possible, and Gorman’s vision for how we get there is beautiful,

“For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com

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