Yes We Did!

Yes we can.

Yes we did.

And yes, we will keep on.


So is it now President-elect Back Obama, and in our multiracial house the phone never stopped ringing well into the early morning.

Our son calling from his college apartment where he was hosting a party with wine and cheese and feeling very classy for a 20 year old.

Friends calling from Times Square and London and the South of France and Milwaukee, and Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Mexico City. Everyone seemed overwhelmed in some way by both what happened and the hope that what will pass from the country will be in equal force and quick apace.


No one is delusional; we all know there will be tough times ahead to get us to a place where we can be a society that talks about race, and health care, and full employment and a culture of gluttony. It will take time and work, but today it was joyful on the streets of Manhattan.


I rode to the gym up Sixth Avenue and a pack of bike messengers were all whooping and giving high fives and loudly proclaiming all of us “brothers.”

If you bumped into a person of color they were radiant and so full of joy it was Christmas come early. My husband's family was calling all day saying, "Wouldn’t Grandma have been so shocked that wish could happen in our lifetimes?”


The Pakistani clerk in the bakery--I had to get a little celebration cake--said that she felt now she would no longer be looked at as a terrorist but as a real American. She had tears in her eyes as she wrapped up my package. The Puerto Rican concierge at the gym was gleeful and celebrating with a bunch of the trainers and many of the clients. Everywhere you heard. WE DID IT !!!!


And we took the message from Obama’s speech last night to truly mean that this was an army of those full of hope, and tiny donations and leg work from dawn to dusk. We know the work has to continue, but for now it is a joy to behold.