Standing on the precipice of change

I can feel it. Yet I fear it. I can see it. Yet I look away. Change, I watch you suspiciously: A shadowy woman with a basket, of flowers, or stones? The not knowing, frightens. Yet the fear remains irrelevant. Change will come as surely as leaves yellow, and glaciers melt into lakes of frost. So I do what I can, a brave smile, a parka for the cold. I face her determined to accept whatever she brings with patience, and grace, commingled with as much hope as I can muster. Because hope is the brightest beacon, the reason for living, the greatest thing there is.

Three Beautiful Things

1. Autumn. Having grown up in a state where leaves changing was merely theoretical, seeing orange and yellow trees still makes me stop in my steps, my heart in my throat as I watch God's temporary annual exhibition of art unfold.
2. Chilly Weather. I love boots and sweaters and turtlenecks and long socks and shawls and fleeces and blankets covering chilly toes while one sips chai as the heater hums, the weather these days lends itself easily to my favorite activities.
3. Zaxby's. It really is indescribably good. The wings and chicken salad? One day I shall sing an ode to thee. Truly. More than the cheap healthy yummy eats, its the comfortable booths, the great music, and the endless soda refills that make this unlikely place our place, a place to recharge ones batteries and catch up after a long and tiring day.

An ode to a city

When I last visited San Francisco I likened it to a commercial on TV for Luizzianne Iced Tea where this old man on a rocking chair talks about how his whole life he drank Lipton and refused to try something different and one day he accidentally drank Luizzianne. He said, "Boy was it good... kinda makes you question your whole life"

This time in San Francisco, I felt this way, but doubly so. Perhaps because this time I visited less as a tourist and more as a faux resident, eating at the local haunts smoking shisha with established residents of the town. I felt briefly what life could be like in a city that is not only stunning in its natural beauty, efficient with its transportation, but also at one with my views on life, and people who are genuinely open down to earth with whom good conversation just flowed naturally. A community I could actually relate to. When I walk down Polk street, or slip into a coffee shop to lounge as the rain subsides, I wonder, would it be this magical if I lived here always?

Don't get me wrong. My city is better than than many I've lived in before. But still- there is a heavy loneliness in my heart in my hometown, a desire to connect and be understood, not by one person here and there, the fleeting jewels of solace in this isolating city, but instead by a community of brethren, open minded and active with large dreams that I wish to share in, to help with, to learn from, and grow from.

Maybe one day life will present a circumstance that will enable me someday call San Francisco my home, but if home is where the heart is, then perhaps San Francisco you're already it.

"No city invites the heart to come to life as San Francisco does. Arrival in San Francisco is an experience in living"~William Saroyan

Three Beautiful Things

1. Barack Obama. That he is who he is. That we voted for him. That the end of the Bush era is in sight. That we have hope for our future.
2. Meeting Baraka. She is an amazing person and just so darn cool. Her and her husband are beautiful indeed.
3. Replenishing one's soul in the coffee shops, streets, and restaurants of San Francisco, truly one of the most beautiful, magical cities on earth.

An attempt to articulate

I don't understand why the emotion runs so strong.

Is it because people in London, Kenya, Greece, India, the world all around are lit up with excitement in a way I have never witnessed before.

Is it because two homeless people in San Francisco, one toothless and shoeless, the other wrinkled pushing a stroller filled with pillows, approached me not asking for money but instead asking me to please vote for Obama?

Is it because I saw a black woman I respect break down and weep like a small child as she remembers the struggles of the civil rights moments and comprehends the magnitude of now.

Is it because of the lines I saw filled with tired people, giving up vacation and personal days to stand in the cold and the rain for a man they believed in?

Is it because I love his vision for the future and find his eloquence a breath of fresh air after eight years of suffocation?

Is it because so many disenfranchised suddenly feel heard?

Is it because Demba's world will now truly seem limitless?

Is it because though I am fully grown, seeing him become President makes me think I can be anything I want to be? That my future could be limitless if I choose it to be so?

Is it because he pointed out to us the power that we have in changing our country and that his election is proof of that, and now I have hope that the youth will once again become involved and care about the Nation we live in?

Is it because he represents so many of us? Children raised by single mothers, middle class, someone who struggled to find his identity and place in the world, someone who is multiracial, someone who is black, someone who is white, someone who lived in Indonesia, whose father was Kenyan, whose middle name sounds beautiful to me?

Or is it because though he is these labels he transcends them? He inspires, he brings hope and he just might possibly help make this country again one that is admired and respected throughout the world.

Obama symbolizes many things, but for me he represents hope. Hope for my country, its institutions, for its citizens, and for me. And hope is a tricky thing, intangible yet strongly felt and as is evident here, quite impossible to adequately describe.

Barack Obama, my President

Words fail. I feel hope for us and me in so many immeasurable ways.

Election Day

Today feels like the last forty five minutes of fasting, though you managed to do just fine all day, now in these last few moments, it is as though time has suspended and each seconds ticks at the pace of glacier minutes. Things seem hopeful but I try not to raise hopes because though people may say one thing, all that matters is the choice they make in the privacy of that booth. I hope that if you have the privilege of being allowed to vote, that you are taking advantage of this. [FYI- In Georgia, if you are a felon and have finished your probation and your restitution if any, you CAN vote. DO NOT let them turn you away from the polls]. Kashif is going to be at a fun election party in San Francisco, but I will be here alone, curled up on the couch, my stomach in knots watching returns, I only hope, and pray that everything will be okay, and that the polls are accurate and that you all reading this are voting today.