Hope is a slippery thing: Just when you think you have it, its gone. Just when you think it is gone forever, there it is.

A woman I met on a Washington Metrorail platform before Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration, told me hope, or at least my lifelong ideal of an African American president, was “my white privilege showing.”

I took a physical step backward from this young lady, and my heart hurt for a second.

Is hope for the privileged? Is the romantic idea of equality and unity reserved for people with white skin?

I carried my little notebook, my pencil and this heavy argument with me as I stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, as I walked by the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument and took pictures of the new World War II Memorial. The thought stayed with me when I saw a young black college student jump from his seat on the Metrorail when an older white woman needed a rest.

“Just hold my camera for me, and you can have my spot,” he said.

Then that young man — Erron Flowers — caught me as I stumbled when the train lurched forward. I don’t think either of us were thinking about white privilege at that point but just staying on our feet in the crush of travelers.

I laughed as three women — two black and one white — danced and hugged and carried on like old friends.

I was amazed as the sea of people around the Washington Monument grew. We were so far from where Obama took his inaugural oath that we had to watch the ceremony on a huge TV screen. The people around me had traveled from across the country to stand in the cold and watch history on television after all.

We wanted to be able to say, for the rest of our lives, to our children and grandchildren and God-willing, our great-grandchildren, “I was there.”

I talked to dozens of people from every walk of life, from every corner of the country, from every ethnicity and of every skin color. We talked about Obama, the ceremony unfolding before us and the cold. We shared stories of our bus trips and our hometowns. I wrote everything down.

When Obama took the stage to speak words that will echo forever through history, we stopped talking; I stopped writing.

The woman behind me — I don’t know her name or even where she was from — put her arm around me. We cried together as the words spilled from Obama’s lips and an overwhelming universal feeling of hope rose from among a crowd that numbered almost 2 million. When we parted, this wonderful woman smiled and gave me a hug. She told me she was glad to meet me and that I was something she would remember on one of the most memorable days of her life.

I am white, and she is black. Our hopes, our tears and the inspiration we felt on the grassy hill in the shadow of the Washington Monument had no color and required no privilege.

So while I never saw Obama in person, I never saw his motorcade or even his assistant, my trip to the 56th presidential inauguration was the experience of a lifetime.

I am changed by the people I met, the stories they told and the words of our president that echoed along the National Mall:

“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of Civil War and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.”