Standing in the subway station waiting for the notoriously late a train- the station is full of people trying to get back uptown from times square probably to Harlem and Inwood. A man calls out to me "Obama !" strangers are calling put to each other. New Yorkers are speaking to people they don't know, high-fiving and crying. Jews and African Americans, chubby white girls and skinny emo boys. I just watched an older woman beat on a stranger's thigh sitting across from her on the train.
They are dancing in the streets. Fire works shooting off.
People have screamed till their voices are gone. They are weeping. We are weeping. The train which is usually only full of drunk and sleeping people, tonight has people discussing "what happened" in that state what "prop " passed in this state. It is euphoria, elation, and, yes, hope- that things will change, that we have a future ahead of us, that we are not condemned to war and hatred. Yes, it may only be fancy words and smooth speech but we have a need, a yearning for something better. In our own group , the room got silent, intense as we waited for the "president elect Obama" to take the stage. In the anticipation someone would explode with a whoop of uncontained astonishment and the rest of us would sush them furiously, afraid to miss anything. When he took the stage -you could feel the sense of history happening, surreal and wobbly. I felt the pages of history being written, the burden of the past and the weight of the future. Generations to come will read this moment in bland acceptance not recognizing the event for what it is.
This woman across from me can't contain herself. She shakes and tosses her head, looking around for a Obama button. She calls out to the girl getting off" have a great 4 years"
