We were dancing in the streets.

I wake up early. 

This is something I do every day, but people are often surprised by it. Especially on a Saturday, especially when I am away from home, especially because I am a writer and we are supposed to be creatures of the night. 

So I was the only person awake in a friend's house on Saturday when the news broke on the west coast. The friends I was staying with are not morning people-- I yelled into a pillow rather than wake them. I was in the middle of a role-playing game over Zoom, so I told my fellow players there. They are less excitable people, or perhaps they were more cautious in their optimism, sensing the fight ahead. For a combination of reasons, I had to hold it in. 

I am excitable. I get hyped about things, as an optimist and a hedonist. I'm neither ignorant of nor immune to the struggle to come, but I've learned that there are few enough moments of collective relief and joy in life that they must be seized upon. They charge the battery, and I've been walking drained for a long time. I wanted to celebrate. I seethed, I focused. I kept myself on simmer. 

When my non-morning friends awoke, I heard laughing and shouting from their bedroom. I found the right moment to exit my game and say goodbye to my far-away friends. My newly-risen friends came stomping into their living room, telling me they planned to open a bottle of champagne to drink at once, then drive down the boulevard. 

We seized that rare joy together. 

Buouyed up on bubbly drunk on an empty stomach, we passengers shouted out of the open windows of their car as we took in the scene in West Hollywood. People spread out from one another in masks and in careful celebration. In one of the gayest neighborhoods in America, the catharsis was as visible as the rainbow and trans banners wielded in every intersection. Folks shouted back. Fists up, two fingers up, v for victory or v for vendetta, there was a feeling on the streets like I've never known. On my phone, I saw the fireworks in London, heard the ringing of the church bells in Paris. It felt like an armistice, though no one has surrendered still. 

In my own city of Oakland, Carroll Fife won her city council seat. She unseated an encumbent who was endorsed by realtors' groups Fife is part of a group called Moms for Housing who made news last year by occupying an empty house in Oakland (there are more empty houses in Oakland than there are unhoused people) with other mothers who lacked affordable options. Oakland PD responded to this with a heavily armed and armored team to evict them in a stunning display of the priorities of both OPD and our mayor, Libby Schaaf. Fife's platform is focused on housing for low-income and no-income people in my town, on protecting renters as we face a cliff of evictions in an already imperiled housing market. Away from home, I looked up video of people celebrating. They were excited about Kamala Harris, sure. But a victory for Fife will mean more to us, immediately. That, too, is joy. That charges the battery. 

I drove home after 30 hours in Los Angeles, alone on the I-5 over the six hours that it takes. The rain passed over me and the lion-colored hills, helping to end this long season of fire. The weather had finally turned toward winter; the slide of this year cooling and slowing, maybe crystallizing into something we can get our hands around. I thought about all the years I spent in the desert, and how it makes me worship the rain every time even though she is no stranger to me now. That, too, charges the battery. 

Let the battery run down low enough and nothing will get it started again. You have to get creative, or hope for a jump start of some kind. 

I found the new Locus magazine on my desk when I got home, with my own name on the cover. That was a jump and a start. I found the Polish translation of my first novel in a box beneath my chair. That needs an adapter, but it can charge the battery. 

Waking up early often means I am alone. In joy or sorrow, I have the quiet of a house still at rest more often than not. When I am not alone, I share space and news and joy and sorrow with people who are bleary-eyed or unhappy to face the day; their reactions are their own and I can't expect them to match my energy. I wake up fierce and whole and ready to join whatever parade or protest the day has brought on. 

I know there are mornings ahead when we will have to rise and fight. I know this winter will be cold and dark. I know that I can wake up early and alone, and also that I won't have to stay that way. 

I'm charging the battery. Charge with me. 

⚡
Meg