Clarisse McClellan's Daughter

My mother and I had made weekend plans for a geocaching road trip over the Iowa and Minnesota borders, which is a decent way to socially distance from other people while still having fun. She slept on my couch on Friday night, when the election had yet to be called, and we got up at 5:30 Saturday morning and took off for Iowa by way of points west-ish, caching all the way. We were in Richland Center, making progress toward the Iowa line, when she got a text message. I figured it was one of my sisters sending a cute picture of one of their kids, or else elder niece was spamming Grandma again. :) Nope! It was a dear friend of the family who's basically an aunt by now, she who we'd eaten pizza with the night before (we're all, as far as we know, 'rona free, and we're all definitely taking precautions to stay that way) telling her that the race had been officially called for Biden and Harris.

I squealed "Eeeeeee!" Then I called and texted people. Amusingly, the group message system involving myself, Mom, both sisters and both brothers-in-law went BOING! and updated all at once thanks to rural area iffy cell service. Then it was a day of joy, relief, geocaching, NPR and BBC special coverage via public radio stations in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and did I mention relief and joy? :D We got back to the marsh in plenty of time to hear Harris and Biden speak, and I could squee about any number of moments there, from Harris quoting John Lewis as her intro, to her line about the audacity of selecting a woman as a running mate, to the hymn he quoted (we know it in the Lutheran church too, I sang it in choir I don't know how many times growing up and I still know some of the words, even though it's been years), to his singling out of the African American community for specific praise and gratitude, complete with thumping of the lectern for emphasis, to the deliberate use of the words compassion and empathy, to the open humility... Harris's intro music is a squee all its own, because if you listen to the lyrics, it was a no holds barred rebuke of racist assumptions. :D In case of emergency, *smash* glass ceiling.

Neither the joy nor the relief of yesterday have worn off yet. It wasn't even 10:30 last night before I was zonked out asleep in my teenage bedroom, curled up under a quilt and ker-splat. Talk about your post-anxiety adrenaline crash! I got back to the isthmus mid afternoon today, and it's mostly been joyscrolling and logging geocaches ever since.

Oh have we ever got work to do. I know it. But the sheer relief has yet to fade, and I doubt it's going to for some time. We did it. We actually did it. :)