(no subject)
"Mourn the losses because they are many, celebrate the victories because they are few."
Oh, my kindred -- how shall we smile and twirl into the streets, our hearts having grown wings! I am so sweetened by this moment.
I was upstairs, anxiously asking Christopher, one of my roommates (who had been downstairs listening to the results), what was going on. All of us had been on tip-toe the whole day -- alternately grinning and swearing up a storm -- reading conservative propaganda, howling with rage and despair, then jumping about in elation, sure that things would work out -- then, in the next instant, planning to move to Sweden if they didn't.
And then Christopher said it -- McCain conceded -- Obama won -- he fucking won! And elation, and heartbreak that it had taken so long, that we had had to doubt -- that this wasn't yet enough -- that touch of crush that one feels on the precipice of stepping onto the path -- that someone will come along and snatch you off again.
Chris and I hugged in the middle of the Maxi Pad, laughing and feeling that breathless elation -- our smiles stretching up the corners of our faces -- telling ourselves to be careful, though, because we were still waiting for 4 and 8 -- and that it wasn't a complete victory. That there was a war, human rights violations, environmental issues, the well-being of the countryside and the country folk, both -- there were still so many things to fight for -- yet wanting in that moment just to feel the heat of victory.
I ran downstairs, buttoning up my sweater and burrowed right into the arms of Natalia and Patrick -- we were laughing and hugging, giving partial kisses and bouncing on our heels -- how wondrous to feel!
And though the house was cold, their arms were warm -- and the light of the hallway bathed us in our happiness and we were grinning at one another with open mouths and hitching breath -- we did it -- we did it -- and Patrick leaned in and whispered -- "Bobama" -- into my left ear (we were going out for boba to celebrate) -- and I laughed until the sound of it was vibrating through my every membrane -- and when I looked up, Brandon, Natalia, Patrick, and I were surrounded in this archaic, new-born giddiness -- this sweetness.
We galloped all the way to The Old Tea House, with Jen's sparkling eyes, Alexa's tousled green hair, Patrick's gleeful stomp, Natalia and Dori clasping hands and twirling in the parking lot, Brandon's enigmatic grin, Christine's sly revelry, Christopher and I laughing in the cold -- dancing, singing, shouting, twisting up our faces to grin recklessly at the moon and running across the intersections, because it was true -- we had been saved. Like Patrick later said, people just seemed to want to get outdoors -- us too -- little groups of students, larger groups of all kinds -- with that look in their eyes, that precious disbelief, that fluttering relief -- flashes of light through the darkness.
Later, I am sure, there will be other things to feel -- we have not, after all, won everything -- but how glorious partial victory can be when one is used to loosing all the most important things.
I hope your sweetness was as consuming and as uplifting. I hope you clasp your kindred dear and think the delicious thought that mayhap, we have made a very good turn -- that though this is not everything, not even, it may well be the BEGINNING of everything. A start -- a little star.
