Genuinely, Proud to be an American

Oh my goodness. Where to begin......

I couldn't post yesterday. I just felt too overwhelmed and ecstatic to put words together in any way that would do justice to what I've been feeling since Tuesday night. I took the day off yesterday -- declared it a holiday and continued celebrating with Tim -- and even 24 hours after Obama's win, I was still bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. It's been the most amazing couple of days, and I still feel too caught up to talk about it all. I'm at a loss for words..... completely.

What I can say, is that for the very first time in my entire life -- I am proud to be an American. I am proud of my country... and for the first time, I really believe that it is MY country.

I spent Tuesday night watching the election results at La Buvette on a tiny little TV with Tim and a hand full of people -- barely able to speak to anyone as I watched the South go, state by state, to McCain, feeling confident and terrified all at the same time. When Obama got California and won ---- I completely lost my shit. Completely. My phone started ringing and I ran outside to scream and cry with Wanda, my sister Kim, Maria... the calls just kept coming and coming -- everyone just screaming and crying on the other end of the line.

I wept all night long -- great big gobs of tears I didn't even try to hide. Tim and I sat alone at Buvette and watched Obama's speech -- holding hands with tears in our eyes, drinking champagne -- taking it all in. I couldn't go to the celebration at the Hilton, couldn't go to the Slowdown -- I didn't want to be surrounded by drunkenness and noise... it was too big a night for all that.

It was history.

This election had never been about Mr. Obama's racial background for me... the past two years of the campaign have honestly been about the issues and the fact that he is a great man who will be a great leader for this nation.

But Tuesday night ---- Tuesday night really was about race for me.

Tuesday night was about my country electing a President who LOOKS LIKE ME. Whose family looks like my family. Who would be able to relate to what it means to be bi-racial in America, the search for self... all of it. When I see photos of him with his mother, I feel a sense of connection too deep for words. For the first time in my life -- on Tuesday -- I felt this sense of pride and acceptance within myself that I cannot really explain. Like the pain of growing up and not being white enough or black enough, being the mutt, being other... it all just fell silent. For the first time, I can look at someone I truly admire, a person of greatness and good --- the President of our country... and see MYSELF.

Tuesday night was about my realizing that my child will never know a time when it seemed impossible for a person of color to be President. My child will be born to a world where they can see themselves in the GREATNESS of this country... their history will not just be that of slavery and struggle.

Tuesday night was about hearing my 75-year-old father -- who lived under Jim Crow as a boy growing up in Alabama -- cry when the results came in. I called him -- weeping and barely able to speak to find him in tears. Tuesday was the realization of a dream that every person of color in this country grew up with in their hearts -- but never really thought could come true.

Tuesday night was about heros... not just Obama -- but about everyone who supported/worked/fought for him. It was about states like Ohio and Florida -- places where so many people believed in this dream that they changed political history! It was about what we can accomplish as a country if we work together, if we put our differences aside and do what's right.

I am so full of pride and hope and happiness. I have to admit that I've been feeling saddened by the passing of Initiative 424 in Nebraska (banning affirmative action) and Proposition 8 in California (revoking the right to same-sex marriage). We still have so very far to go -- but I feel like the distance has been shortened so very much this week.

I'll be framing my Ticonderoga Laddie No. 2 pencil -- and it will hang with pride in my home, and hopefully in the home of my child, someday. I have never been a patriotic person --- never understood why people fly flags, sing anthems or march in parades. Until today....

For the first time in my 37 years ---- I understand. And it's the very best feeling in the world.

Hope and History

I'm useless today... absolutely useless.

Today feels like Christmas Eve (circa 1976), the night before I took the SAT, my birthday, the morning I took my driver's test, the day my god daughter Sofi was born, the morning I hit I80 to move to NYC, and the night PULP opened all rolled into one. I feel ecstatic and anxious, thrilled and terrified all at the same time... and it's almost more than I can bear.

I haven't written about the election here --- mainly because every time I start thinking about it, I feel like I'm on the verge of having a massive panic attack. This feeling's been growing by leaps and bounds over the past few months --- and now that it's finally Election Day, I can do little more than sit at my desk and obsessively refresh CNN.com in hopes that there will be some new shred of information.

This past weekend, I came home from a birthday party early on Sunday morning, to discover that someone had gone up both sides of my very democratic block and knocked down/destroyed every Obama yard sign. I think that was officially my breaking point... I was running from yard to yard at 2am, in tears, desperately trying to piece those signs back together again -- when the magnitude of this election settled on me. Everything changes today... everything! One way or the other, we'll be waking up to a new country tomorrow and I am overwhelmed by what that will mean.

I truly believe that today might be one of the most important days -- if not THE most important day of my life -- of all our lives... it's really that huge.

I went to vote first thing this morning... and I was, honestly, shaking while I stood on line. When I was done (and after I had a spell of mind-blowing OCD that forced me to check my ballot 20 times in this crazy ass fear that I may have accidentally voted for McCain) I went to turn my ballot in and this older black woman was collecting them.... I leaned into her as she went to take the pencil and ballot and asked if I could, please, keep my Ticonderoga Laddie No. 2 pencil. She winked at me and whispered in my ear "Baby, you go right on ahead and take it. I won't tell nobody. You made history with that thing today." I left my polling place in tears..... and am getting weepy all over again just thinking about it.

No doubt about it. Today really is the biggest day of my life.

My Happy Day on Highway 183

Yesterday -- in an attempt to not sit in front of the computer and obsess about the election all day -- Tim and I jumped in the 'ru and took off on a little road trip through western Iowa. We traveled up through Council Bluffs and hit Small's Fruit Farm in Mondamin, where we stocked up on apples and cider and acorn squash -- then traveled up the Loess Hills Scenic Byway to Pisgah, Moorhead and Mapleton.

We stopped for lunch at Ruth's Sweet Shop and Cafe in Ute -- which may be the strangest place I've ever eaten. The counters where covered in boxes of ancient candy (I bought a jawbreaker for five cents), and the walls were covered with hords of someone's baby photos -- each one enclosed in a ziplock bag... craziness! Then we hit the highway again and went up to Ida Grove -- took a long walk in this great park up there -- drove up to Correctionville, which has the best gas stations in Iowa, and then circled back down.

It really was an amazing day -- the weather was *gorgeous*, I discovered a lot about Iowa, and am now in possession of a pretty awesome stash of apples -- which will be turned into pies this weekend.

A few shots from the trip: