she's leaving home

i'm packed and ready to call a cab. today, i leave madison where i have spent the last two weeks in the trenches with the most amazing people. i came to "be a part of history", as adam put it in his invitation, and i'm leaving with so much more. as for the learning, i'm grateful. i have had access to the internal and grassroots levels of electoral organizing here. how lucky am i to have been able to gather that through the energized plotting of enlightened and charged young people. i was here for such a short time, yet my new friends and i have remarked that it feels like many months. in a good way.

yesterday, i composed a blog post about the incredible spirit of the young people i have met. then the fucking blog site seized and i lost the text. i will never be able to replicate what i said, but i'll try tonight. for now, suffice to say that this experience has renewed my optimism about the power of young people to make change. dubya may have squeaked in for another four years, but there is a force on the ground that will continue to shift the american psyche. evolution is slow, and there is a heavy history of culture that needs to move. and it's moving. there will be thousands of meetings to de-brief what happened, to argue about the future of the democratic party, to decide on leadership and approach. but underneath those process-related discussions, let's hope there continues to be the nudging. young people are the ones who just might have the spirit, and the magic formula, to close the gaps and fill the cracks. what could emerge just might turn this country upside down. and not soon enough.

i'm heading now to chicago to catch my flight. see you at home.