hope

[ewein2412]

Tim says:  "So--now I would feel good about moving to the States."

What Tim keeps likening this election to is the fall of the Berlin Wall, a thing he "never expected to see within my lifetime."  And it does feel a bit surreal, still.  I am so used to keeping my head down, and all of a sudden, for the first time in *years*, I can walk down the street waving an American flag.  Which I did, last night, on our way to the Perth city fireworks and bonfire.  (this is mark, of course):

Afterwards we had a wonderful bonfire party with our next door neighbors.  We do the bonfire in the BBQ because there's no where else to put it--been collecting sticks and last year's xmas tree and blue wrapping paper, which makes the flames go green (as Yalies of my generation will know).

 

There were drinks and nibbles in the summerhouse, and we had sparklers and rockets and the left over jack-o-lanterns lighting the path...
 

...and my lovely neighbor brought us a bottle of pink champagne with which to toast the election results.  The kids toasted red-white-and-blue star-shaped marshmallows (these are the neighbors):

  
 

I feel a bit more human this morning, having had more than 2 hours' sleep.  But I still can't quite believe that I'm not dreaming.

 

My mother died thirty years ago next week at the age of 35.  She was born in the same year as Obama's mother, and of a similar idealistic, openminded temperament (she didn't marry a black man; she married a gay man, knowingly, in 1963.  She was the daughter of a United Church of Christ minister, and her husband was Jewish.  They adopted a mixed-race baby during their three years in Jamaica).  It makes me weep, to try to imagine what she would have thought of this election.  I suppose, in her way, she fought for it, back in the '60s.  She EARNED this election.  God, I wish she could have seen it happen.
 

I can go home now. 

 

----------------------------------

estara  and everyone else, here's that link again: http://heroes.cnn.com/

Comments

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

oh, man. Welcome to the new world.

[ewein2412]

It really does make me want to break out all the old Pete Seeger records.

"I can see a new day,
a new day soon to be,
When the storms clouds are all past
And the sun shines on a world that is free.

I can see a new world,
a new world coming fast,
When all men are brothers
And hatred forgotten at last.

I can see a new man,
a new man standing tall
With his head high and his heart proud
Afraid of nothing at all."

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

*covets*

[ewein2412]

ok, I have actually managed to find this very record.

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

XD I hope to God you have a means of playing it?

[ewein2412]

it's playing now! EVERY SONG on this record is appropriate.

[sharonafyre.livejournal.com]

That's exactly how I feel about it, and I still live here.

For 8 years, except for a brief month in 2001 which need not be named, I have felt shrinking pride that grew into disdain for my country. What horrible fear mongering! What obvious greed! I had lost all impulse to contribute to my community because it just seemed so pointless. After a lifetime of community volunteering, I dropped everything and kept my head down and just lived my suburban American life. My will was squashed. And now, 36 hours after the news that Obama won, I can feel the social activism bubbling back to the surface... I feel like the spell of hopelessness has been broken, the blindfold of fear has fallen off, and I can see the world again. It needs a lot of help and I feel the desire to work on it spring back, fully formed, into my will.

Go Team Humans!

PS - Thanks for sharing about your mother.

[ewein2412]

see my comments above with rainbowjehan--I have got all these songs of hope and protest stuck in my head right now, my earliest memories of music--Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez--and listening to them again, it feels like they are coming true--that legacy is finally coming true--the new day is HERE, today.

thanks for responding; your thoughts have moved me to tears, once again, but it just seems they come easily now.

[sovay]

my earliest memories of music--Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez--and listening to them again, it feels like they are coming true--that legacy is finally coming true--the new day is HERE, today.

It's a nice change from feeling like the angrier songs of Phil Ochs!

[ewein2412]

tell me about it.

I may have commented to this effect already, but

[sharonafyre.livejournal.com]

May I just take this moment to tell you that your Telemakos books have been one of my single biggest and favorite discoveries in contemporary writing in the last five or six years?

And also that I love Pete Seeger? And that Bob Dylan is literally my first musical memory?

Re: I may have commented to this effect already, but

[ewein2412]

as a Telemakos fan you are well-equipped to appreciate my secret personal inner delight that a man with an African father and a white, Western mother could become the president of the United States.

but I also just am so taken with how much his early childhood and upbringing paralleled my own--we are children of the same generation. It feels good.

and, and... just thank you.

Re: I may have commented to this effect already, but

[sharonafyre.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought of Telemakos early on.

Cool parallel you didn't even know was going to occur.

I wonder if he has read your books. They would make a nice gift for the 10 year old if she is a reader.

Re: I may have commented to this effect already, but

[ewein2412]

rumor has it she's a harry potter fan. I hadn't thot of sending the books myself but that's not a bad idea!

Re: I may have commented to this effect already, but

[sharonafyre.livejournal.com]

You totally should!!

Voted!

[estara.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your memories. That's the things about Americans which we Europeans admire: when they want to stand up for their beliefs they go all the way at personal risk. We're often too complacent for that.

Re: Voted!

[ewein2412]

that is very high and moving praise indeed, and makes we unduly proud. But I've *never* been able to be truly, truly proud of my country. It's wonderful.

[mhari.livejournal.com]

*hugs, and hugs, and hugs*

[ewein2412]

aaaaahhhh!

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Chris said the same thing to me. =)

I'm still grinning. I can't stop.

[ewein2412]

I just keep crying, like a twit!

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Not like a twit--like someone who's had a huge, huge weight removed, and received incredibly joyous and validating news, all at the same time!

[ewein2412]

you know tim says of the Berlin Wall he thought he'd never see it in his lifetime, but I never even saw this coming. I mean, I did *hope*, of course, for the last year, but I never dared *imagine* what it would feel like if it happened.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

Is that Sarah Palin holding the sparkler?

[ewein2412]

HAH! oh that's mean.

[handworn.livejournal.com]

It does suck for all the women who even remotely resemble her.