About last night...

Last night was such a moving and soul-shifting night for me.

Although I'm from Vancouver, I lived in the States for eleven years. I became an American in 1998 to vote for Al Gore. I take politics pretty seriously, especially US politics. My wife and I could not believe what happened with the 2000 election - it took us ages to get over it. What surprised us the most was the apathy. That the country beating its chest loudest about democracy could have an election  shifted away from the winner, and no one seemed to care, no protests, no riots.

This apathy led the way for eight years that were, pardon my language, totally fucked up.

My wife and I moved back to Canada five years ago, and the conversation about our move started simply with a joke about how if Bush actually won the next election (meaning 2004) we'd move back to Canada. Once we spoke about it openly, even as a joke, we realized there was a deeper truth to our words. We didn't want to raise a kid in the US, we wanted to come back to Canada. It mattered. Home beckoned.

I still carry around the stub in my wallet from my ballot cast against George Bush in 2004. It was close, but Americans had not yet woken up to the truth about their situation. They were still deluded that their President was doing all right. The apathy continued. Within months of the election that confidence was shattered forever, and Bush's approval ratings slid to record lows, and he became increasingly irrelevant. People started waking up to the truth of their reality, what they had allowed to happen in their names.

Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic convention was a clarion call to me. We had it on tape and showed it to all our friends. It was a new voice of politics, it communicated in a deeper way, it broke thorough. It mattered.

Watching Obama, whom I have supported since he announced his Presidential bid so many months ago, rise from relative obscurity to where he is now, seeing his deep political acumen, fantastic strategy, enviable discipline and awesome integrity has been the most amazingly inspiring political event of my life. I doubt greatly I'll ever have another like this. He is the political love of my life, and I'll never forget it.

And now he is President-elect. I don't think it's sunk in yet. It's gonna take me some time.

If it simply meant the end of the last terrible eight years, that would be enough.

If it meant the Democrats rising to power again, that would be enough.

If it it meant that young people finally found their place in the political system, that would be enough.

If it was simply a man with a very foreign name being accepted as President, that would be enough.

If it was simply that young African Americans will grow up in a world where they can really believe they too can be President, that would be enough.

But the sheer complex enormity of it all, the layered meaning, the depth of emotion it brings is too much for me too handle.

It hasn't sunk in yet, but it will. And it is the greatest gift I could imagine Americans giving themselves. It is a moment of profound change. Part of me wants to go back South and be a part of it. But I will watch from the sidelines, hoping that even a small part of the hope and promise of an Obama presidency can be realized.

From now on things will be different. How can they not be? 

Yes we can.