I Bear Witness

Three bags of groceries sit in the car and I know I should carry them in, but I’m about to burst with joy and I neeeeeeeeeeeed to write something while I listen to brand new (just released today) music from Fiction Family while bands march and pundits blather on and on and on on MSNBC. This is a fantastic day! Today is the end of eight years of our nation’s nightmare and frankly, dear reader, I don’t give a good golly damn if you disagree with my assessment because I know I write truth and if you don’t believe it, become a ghost 100 years from now and come back to see what the historians say. To quote The Internets, the historians will say, “FAIL!”
And besides (coming back to the groceries in the car), it’s cold outside – possibly as cold as the inside of the fridge, so what does it matter if they sit for a while?
I’ve got some celebrating to do! George Bush and his fellow war criminals are no longer holding the reins and I can breathe a little bit better tonight.
Jim and I woke up early this morning, threw on our clothes and drove to Sally Anne’s house so we could watch the ceremony with friends: Joe and Sally Anne, another couple (the male part of the couple was Sally Anne’s ex-husband, his wife Sally Anne’s good friend), and later that morning a neighbor from across the street came over with a loaf of home made Irish soda bread.
“Can I toast this?” Sally Anne asked.
We are America. Sally Anne and Joe live in an upper class neighborhood on a hill overlooking Lake Washington. They’re not far from the freeway and close enough to Seattle. We live a few minutes away from them in a tiny little town developed fifty years ago for Korean veterans, big yards full of huge hemlock trees and small cinder block houses. Our house has been remodeled and although small, is trendy and comfortable. Most of the houses in our little town are a little run down. One man from our group works for Boeing, a blue-collar job, and a machinist’s union member. His wife (me) is unemployed, laid off and having a rough time finding a job although she’s enjoying the down time and feels it’s helped her remember what matters to her.
Sally Anne’s ex is retired. His wife is bubbly and dear. Joe, Sally Anne’s second and much-better husband, designs yacht interiors and is quick to explain that even the very rich stopped spending money on yacht interiors and his work has dried up. Sally Anne worked with Joe before the work disappeared and their neighbor from across the street is also unemployed just like me. Out of seven two are unemployed and two are self-employed with nothing coming in.
Are there any mathematicians here? Percentages?
We ate bagels this morning, paper-thin slices of cold ham, assorted cheeses, strawberries and other fresh fruits. We drank coffee and wept for joy.
Not everyone is happy and I understand, but really – seriously – even if it only lasts for a day, I don’t really care.

Praise song for the day.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light. – Elizabeth Alexander