I don’t typically take the time for personal reflections, but a couple of things happened today that I really want to note.

First, I came home today–A day in early November, no less– to find that the daylillies in my front yard had bloomed.  This is not daylilly season!  I’d been eying the buds for days and wondered if they would make any significant progress before the weather chilled out again and it gave me such a sense of hope to see the pale yellow blossoms when I came home today.

That feeling only amplified what I was feeling given the result of recent elections.  We had an election with no signs of shiggedy.  We had an election that allowed a person of color to triumph based soley upon his merits.  This gives me hope that one day, America can truly overcome racism.  This event to me is only a stepping stone in that battle because, you see we still have to mark this event as The First Black President, not as simple the victory as the best candidate.  We have to ask Blacks how they feel about this, but we don’t ask whites, or Latinos or Asians.  So, how far have we come?

We can continue to hope that it racism will disappear (one day) and that Barack will be a great president, we have to have hope.  But somewhere I have been burdened with this nugget of realism deep in my being that tells me he’s just a man, not a savior and that the economy has a natural cycle to it that politicians cannot control decisions will be made with the best of intentions but it still won’t be all roses and grins along the way.

The other thing that happened today was that my Obama buttoned finally arrived in the mail.