Politics & Power Quote by Elizabeth Robinson Schwartz

The power here is in how casually awe is handled. Schwartz frames a quintessentially choreographed patriotic scene - flag, anthem, crowd singing - but she refuses to dress it up with grand conclusions. Instead, the moment lands through sensory accumulation and then a deliberate downshift: she simply "walked off the field" and "kind of enjoyed the feeling". That understatement is the point. It treats national ritual less as ideology to be argued and more as atmosphere you breathe in, almost accidentally, after exertion.

The context matters: "after the race" implies a public contest where bodies, performance, and identity are already on display. The anthem becomes a second finish line, converting an individual event into collective meaning. The crowd singing supplies the social proof; you are not just proud, you are invited to feel proud in unison. Yet Schwartz doesn't claim triumph or even articulate what the feeling is. The vagueness functions as honesty: patriotic emotion is often pre-verbal, a mix of relief, belonging, maybe even disbelief at being inside the script.

Subtextually, the quote is about how memory edits experience. She remembers the staging - center of the field, the raising flag - like a camera finding its hero shot. Then she remembers the exit, the private afterglow once the ceremony has done its work. It's a writer's move: letting the machinery show without dismantling it, acknowledging both the genuine swell and the quiet pleasure of being carried by it.