A Spirit of Service

Friends,

I've just come home from my favorite day of the week - Wednesdays, where I zip into the school by 8:00 and get to make fun things until noon in Production, then off to Binders for bookmaking until 5:00, capping off the day for 3 hours of calligraphy. I still pinch myself every morning when I go to work - to be so lucky to love what I do so much that it doesn't for a split second ever, EVER feel like work.

Hank came in this morning at PC and spoke with my first quarter class about how lucky they are to be in a place where it's safe to fall. Safe to fail. Safe to disagree. Safe to ask for help. I think nothing is harder than art school - pouring yourself into a medium, only to have it dissected and critiqued over and over and over again until it's perfect. This is a beautiful place. This place of conflict. It is a luxury to not be alone.

I am grateful to live in a country who is always, ALWAYS aware of that conflict and whose people are empowered by the ability to move forward. I am grateful for the mistakes we have made as a nation. I am grateful for the voices who spoke in unity to select a man who has put a positive spin on an ugly election battle and who has turned this nation purple. He has called us to action by turning an emotion into a verb. HOPE

And though there is still a little voice in my head that wonders if Orwell's 1984 is in play and that's big brother looking down at me, I am going to dutifully trust in Obama's call to set my cynicism aside and to put a little more faith in my government. I will support him.

Kudos, too to McCain who was so gracious and served us even during the campaign as the man brave enough to battle against such a positive campaign as Obama's. How do you fight a smile? You cannot. McCain sacrificed himself to finish the race and held fast and said goodbye in a way that no one else could.

I am too frickin' busy to post a picture that appropriately honors Obama's victory speech last night. I want to calligraph his speech and paint his face in rich violet hues of eggplant, avocado, red cabbage and merlot. (Can you tell I'm inspired?) I have never been more excited.

Here are highlights from his speech I found particularly moving.

"This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice."

"So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other."

"Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."

"That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected."

So guess what friends. If we can make ourselves kinder, our friendships deeper, our marriages wiser, our children safer, our decisions wiser, our compassion real, we can do the same for our country and it for us.