a week later

 

A week later and I still get goosebumps.   I take pictures of his name like he's a newborn.  In fact, the entire election night in Kino was kind of like a birth.  Glued to our computers for up to the minute election news, the electricity went out right around tallying Pennsylvania.  After scurrying for candles and putting the children to bed, we stepped outside and under the stars. I have had the fortune of attending a few births.  Women of different backgrounds and families of different religions.  There is much ado though it is the woman and her baby that do the doing, most of us just wait.  Tom and I waited in stillness. The students had been busy all day, lots of activity around the station and this was the first moment of calmness, necessitated by something out of our control.  There is a stillness before a woman starts pushing.  A rest filled with knowing whats to come.  We sat outside on our futon, smiling, anxious...a friend called, "he won Pennsylvania"  An excited scream.  He called again to say he won. I cried, Tom had the most enormous smile on his face.  Huge cheers came from the faculty house where the students were gathered, someone had called to give them the news.  Dare I say we had all attended the new birth of our nation.  Some of these students voted for the first time ever. They will always remember that their  vote mattered that it is true that a group of people can change things.