Praise Island

Let us use the word we, in reference to ourselves. 

Let us recognize the beauty of what has happened and trust in goodness again, as we should have done the whole time, as perhaps we did do. Has the muscle for such faith grown weak, from four years of buckling strain? 

I walk into the world abused and disliked, as you do. But what do we convey to others if we let that determine our outlook?

We do not lead with those things.

We lead with our best selves stepping forward, giving out light. Be strong, light, easy. Trusting. I don't get much out of being suspicious, fearing the worst in people. I believe in goodness. I assume it. Yes, I'm disappointed when I'm wrong, but mainly: I see it more. I experience it more. I think you know how good that feels. Participating in cocreating its birth, over and over again.

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Now is the time for joy. We lived through this past week as nail-biters, but history will look at the electoral tally and call this a landslide. They will see it as decisive. The country took its country back, and then some. In a world where you can't undo time, we have done the best and most beautiful thing we can: avert further disaster. 

We will discuss the complications and the other elections, but for the World, for History, the primary concentration of attention will be on the gesture. Biden's decisive landslide– the final tally will be historically perceived as numerically sweeping even if it was a nail-biter for those of us who were there– his decisive landslide will be the triumphant and conclusive rejoinder to a man who will now live in the ignominy not only of losing the popular vote twice, but in joining the short list of presidents rejected by the people they led, the first single-term presidency in nearly three decades.

His political career began as a joke. We didn't take seriously that he might win. For a man who so desperately wants to be liked, he now ends that career in a deeper hole of ridicule than he ever could have imagined; a man who ran himself into the ground unable to close his mouth after throwing a four-year tantrum. No popular figure in recent memory has more thoroughly steeped themselves as a pariah, at least for those with eyes to see. The meltdown we are about to witness in the coming days will define the term sore loser as it has never been before. 

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But I don't wish to gloat. No need to emphasize his poor qualities; he'll do that just fine on his own. Let us instead breathe in the joy. Let us take to the streets– not against something, but for something. Let us smile, as I did in 2008, driving the 545 at 7 A.M., when an African-American man got on the crowded bus and sat next to me. 

We were the only people of color on the bus, and I was the only young person, but I don't know if any of that mattered, because he looked at my face and he knew. Like minds. He knew I got it. We were screaming with joy in our silence, beaming at each other like the sun's first rays over frost, very soon unable to keep from spilling out in conversation with each other. Shaking our heads in jubilation. 

America. 

What is born must be reborn, and it is born again. We have just rebirthed our country.