Swinging States

It was refreshing to wake up in Chicago today.

My television was still set to the local channel, where nothing matters other than the Cubs' miraculous win last night. I had gone to bed scrolling through wide-eyed Facebook posts from Chicagoans who have waited all lengths of lifetimes for this day and dozens of heartfelt congratulatory messages from folks everywhere who just appreciate a good old fashioned miracle.

What can be more American than baseball? My kids, all native Chicagoans, watched and weighed in from far flung places, celebrating with non-natives, while I watched with a friend who has shared  more than a quarter century of life with me in these parts, for better and, this year, for worse. Worst. From the time our oldest children were our only children, we have shared each others' joys and cried on each others' shoulders, celebrated milestones and endured tragedies. Mostly, we have simply journeyed together, first through tedious afternoons in basements with stir crazy toddlers, zillions of appetite suppressing lunches where mountains of greasy French fries dulled our senses to the bickering and the food fights and the constant cries for attention (Mom? Mom? MOMMMMMM?), birthday parties with blue cookie monster frosting everywhere, the move to the suburbs, report cards, sporting events, dances, college visits, the high school graduation party we threw jointly for our first borns as we prepared for the first big launch. Unremarkable slices of life, with a smattering of overwhelming joy and unbearable grief. All if it, though, shared.

Last night, we watched together, just the two of us, with our dogs. We talked occasionally, stuffed our faces, got lost in our thoughts. We tried our best to break up the tussles between our dogs, both of us feeling oddly protective of our own but loving the other -- well maybe tolerating is a better word -- as one of our own. We seized upon teachable moments, silently chastised the each other for our undisciplined and spoiled pups, felt the same sort of solidarity we had felt for all those years, viewing everything through a mother's prism. Enjoying the moment while we tried to push away the crazy.

We high fived, we groaned, we held our breath, and we held hands through the seeming eternity of the last out. I whispered her oldest son's name to myself, hoping he could wield some influence from wherever he has been since he left us so suddenly last January. I called my daughter in New York to share a post game Woohooooo. My friend and I danced around my living room like school girls, and we both knew, without speaking, how bittersweet this moment, and all good moments, have to be.

This morning, I flipped momentarily back to CNN, just to check whether there was any new news. Still the same maps, fluid color wheels of blue and red and purple. Still the same heads talking. They seemed not to have heard that all is temporarily right with the world, that the Cubbies had won the World Series after 108 years. That Ohio is not a particularly swinging state today, and that no amount of polling can quantify the thrill of victory today.