For people -- average people -- to change the way things are...
To disrupt the quantifiable order of things.
.......We get to thinking...hands in our pockets, head down walking along the street, tough, smart....we've seen a lot....and we get to thinking that maybe change isn't possible.
I mean, c'mon, not really. Theoretically, sure. For other people? Maybe. But for us, here. Now?
It's been so long. So many delays. So many false starts.
We've gotten tired, maybe even a little cynical...we've found ourselves deriving a strange satisfaction from the assumption that everyone is corrupt, that things will never change.
***
But then like a drop of water from a tap you thought had gone dry. Like a door blown slightly ajar by the wind. Like hearing a sound in a disused room, you turn your head.
It's the sound of of people cheering, of flags flapping in the wind, of feet stomping on the ground they refuse to leave.
And then it happens. The earth moves a little. Who would have ever thought?
***
I guess I'm like most people--feeling, today, a buoyancy that words can never capture. No more complacency, no more despair, the shadows have been lifted.
Suddenly I believe again: that we can have a lot. That life can be different, things can change.
They say people are embracing on the streets, weeping.
Why did we wait so long? Why do we always wait so long?
"Yesterday I was still a fool, but today I know better."*
***
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning or an end.
Rilke said the only serious thing is to live the questions.
There is only one serious question.
How do you make dreams last?
***
Tom Friedman, in describing what has been overcome today, said humiliation is the most powerful human emotion. I disagree.
The most powerful human emotion -- or let's not call it an emotion, because emotions can be fragile. The most powerful force that wells up inside us is not humiliation.
It's Hope.
***
Things change for the worse so quickly. They change for the better much more slowly.
But they can.
