I'm still getting used to this

2019.06.07 Riot Capital Pride Opening Party, Washington, DC USA 159-52, by Ted Eytan, CC BY-SA 2.0

As any regular reader of this space knows, on very rare occasions I've given vent to my dark nights of the soul. Mostly, I kept soldiering on, feeling the weight of the responsibility towards all of you. But I'm human, not a celestial being, and sometimes I just let rip with my doubts and fears. And more often I subsumed my daily doubts and fears in order to not let down my readers.

I say this because, as I'm writing this, I've just finished dancing to "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by that awesomely cheesy 1970s band Looking Glass. And as I was dancing, I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I did that. I couldn't remember the last time that I just unleashed my unbridled, unabashed joy.

We're nearing the end of the first full week of President Joe Biden's administration, and it still stupefies me. Yes, Pres. Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million. But in the key states which delivered him the Electoral College, it was a close-run thing. Again, the majority of this country had to hold on by the skin of their teeth to see how Maricopa and Fulton counties would go.

But win we did, and we have a good chance of consolidating those victories, and adding to them in the coming two years.

And now that boulder, that one-ton weight which pressed down on me and, I'm sure, all of you has been lifted.

Last week I was on vacation, and I would find myself sitting outside on my porch, THC coffee in hand, a spot of beautiful Southern California weather bathing me, and it felt as if the darkness had lifted. But it was more than that. Being so mired in the darkness for four years, culminating in the January 6th insurrection, I had gotten used to it. I had become acclimatized to the daily parade of pathology masquerading as politics. So focused on getting the Filth out of the White House, I had forgotten that our lives hadn't been like this always. Sitting on my porch, I started thinking about time during President Barack Obama's tenure. I had forgotten the happy warrior I had been, so sure in my belief that this country had turned a page, and was set on an unalterable course of progress. The results of November 2016 were so soul crushing because I felt betrayed by everyone who voted for a fascist imbecile, who voted for him because having a Black man in the Oval Office was too much for them. I felt betrayed by people who voted for Pres. Obama twice, and then turned to the Filth. No two men could be more opposite; and yet, enough people in three states voted for him, and set us on a dark four-year experiment.

But now I'm experiencing irruptions of joy, longer and longer moments of glee. Part of this is because I've stopped drinking. But it's mostly from the utter relief of knowing that decency is back in the White House. It's a relief borne out of knowing that we have the winds at our backs, and the momentum is with us. Pres. Biden's executive actions during his first week in office have been an utter repudiation of Trumpist fascism. He's going to work for the the 74 million people who voted for the Filth, as much as he's going to work for those of us who flocked to the polls for him. But he won't work for them by catering to their fears and prejudices. He's going to do it by pushing for policies which will make all their lives better, even if they have reservations about things which impact their lives not a whit, like allowing transgendered people to serve in the military.

And thus, I danced. I boogied. I grooved to the beat. The music of the universe is playing loudly and joyfully again, and I would be a churl to reject it.

As a wise Shinto priest once said about his religion: "We don't have theology. We don't have ideology. We dance." Dance, my friends.