Sunday, November 8, 2020

We did it we did it we did it we did it.

The rock that's sitting on my chest for four years has shifted. It's not gone--the pandemic is its own stone--but the weight has eased.

Portland, Maine, is celebrating hard: downtown is crammed with people waving signs and dancing and playing music and honking horns.

Here at the Alcott House, we lit a campfire and cooked hamburgers and sat outside in the dark under the shadow maples. When Paul got home from work, we lifted a glass of Prosecco.

The joyousness feels like the end of a war. Victory Day. I know the Monster has plenty of time left to inflict damage, and that he will inflict it. But we'll get through these last months. We have won.

I thought I would have so much to write to you this morning, but I don't.

I was close to tears, at the sight of Kamala Harris in her suffragette white.

And Joe Biden's favorite poet is Seamus Heaney. 


* * *

Compose in darkness.   
Expect aurora borealis   
in the long foray
but no cascade of light.

Keep your eye clear
as the bleb of the icicle,
trust the feel of what nubbed treasure   
your hands have known.

--from "North" by Seamus Heaney

2 comments:

nancy said...

Yes -- there is lightness in my mind, soul, and body now. Hope for my grandchildren. We, too, had a fire in the firepit last night. It was so healing to just sit with our tin camping cups of wine and watch the coals. Unfortunately, I have a lot of students who were very vocal about their disappointment on Friday. No outward celebrating in my neck of the woods, although I think there may have been significant secret rejoicing. And I get to see you next weekend!

Ruth said...

Celebrations here are more circumspect especially as many have such divided families and friend groups. I too, worry about the bully who not only takes his ball and goes home, but who stomps on it just to make sure no one can ever use it again. But I am singing Hallelujah and feeling so emotional. I opened the good Bourbon!