It was that day, the time we’d been waiting and hoping for, not knowing if it would come. A weight lifted making Covid that much easier at least for one day. A cacophony of car horns everywhere and orange police cones blocking traffic around Lake Merritt, the jewel of Oakland, California, the single place where people gather and walk the lake’s three-mile circuit, jogging, skateboarding, picnicking or taking the doggie for a stroll, a place where everyone had come to celebrate, people waving from car windows, T-shirts that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Goodbye Don,” boom boxes, capoeira dancers, even pigeons maybe flying higher than they ever had before, the Grand Lake Theater’s marquee telling us that every vote counts, a colorful assortment of face masks, incense burning vanilla and musk a metallic snail rolling down the street with fire spewing from its two antennae, a slow-moving dragon, flags and a sign celebrating how Oakland is now in the White House. Biden! Kamala! Yes we can!
