Decisions...

So, the plane ticket to the inauguration of our noble president-elect, Barack Hussein Obama, costs around $800. If I spend it, I'll miss out on:

-Three days of work, unpaid.
-Either a Buenos Aires or Salvador da Bahia add-on to my end-of-the-year romp in Brazil.
-A trip to Cuba in February with some of my best friends from the States.
-New York for Spring Break.
-A new digital camera (the one I have now is very "first generation").
-A new iPod (well, an iPod, as I currently don't own one and this Discman is looking more and more like an 8-track player every day).
-Possibly Mexico in March with another one of my cool peeps.

Now, I know you're thinking that all these things couldn't possibly be worth $800, which is true when considering the individual price of each item. However, when taking into account the accrued interest, fees, and surcharges that go along with robbing Peter to pay Paul, the end amount spent becomes compounded.

If I do go, I'll be making a long-overdue and much-needed visit to Washington, where I lived as a sometime political operative before moving to Colombia. I'll be amongst virtually all of my very best friends in life (and get to see my undergrad university especially represented since our band, the world-famous Marching 100, has been invited to perform). And we'll be witnessing the one and only time that the first black president of the United States is sworn into office. I mean, I'm the history teacher for chrissakes...shouldn't I be there for this one and only history-making life-changing event?

I have to decide by next week.

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Note: If this post sounds strange and flighty to you, then you should know that I am indeed a sufferer of vagabond neurosis.

Change

Two weeks ago, when I mailed off my absentee ballot, I did so with the anticipation of an impending Obama victory, where I'd cry tears of joy at the most important accomplishment a black American could attain in a country where we, for so often and for so long, were not counted as part of "we the people." I would play Sam Cooke's bittersweet "A Change Gon' Come" and call my friends and family back home and hoot and holler and say silly stuff like "us got us a pres'dent, nah!" (I did actually call my father and say that to him).

But when November 4 rolled around, I was nursing the wounds of a three-day old heartbreak, when the day after my birthday I was told by the person I was semi-dating in Bogotá that (long story short) they were going back to their ex because they "couldn't see a future" with me. And it's true, my plans are to move to Brazil at the end of my current work contract. There was nothing but logic and self-preservation behind that statement, that decision. And I was crushed.

Living overseas, it's very easy to drown in loneliness and cultural isolation. I live in a country full of black and brown people who look like me, but don't think at all like me; where the prevailing political tendency is very much to the right; where a large number of people don't bother to even learn my name, choosing the arguably rude appellation "el gringo" when referencing me. In fact, I live in probably the only country where the majority of the people wanted McCain to win the election; though in Colombia's defense, much aid from the US stands to be cut as Obama works to rebuild the country from within and that assistance is the basis for their bias. But in this sometimes hostile cultural environment, I was moved by one person who showed me concern, compassion, and above all, possibilities. No regrets; it was easy to fall in love.

And when the pollsters officially handed over the presidency of the "free world" to Brother Barack, I, caught up in my own personal knot of desire, allowed the single most important political event of my lifetime and of the last forty years to pass with little more than a raised eyebrow and a "good for him." I felt cheated out of the climactic fruition of hope and aspirations, while folks danced through tears in Times Square and in front of the White House. I was completely numb to the seismic paradigm shift whose epicenter lay, that night, in Chicago.

This, my friends, is one of the costs of exile.

And now, a week later, my wounds are healing and I can feel myself rebounding both stronger and wiser (clichés, I know), pero cada vez mejor. And I can feel, belatedly, the change radiating from up north. I can look in the mirror and see, belatedly, an All-American face where before, I only saw a nation-less, black face. Because the Face of America now looks like mine. And, belatedly but nonetheless, I can play "A Change Gon' Come."

Yes it is, y'all.

I Voted!

And I'm perfectly euphoric. Today, I mailed in my absentee ballot, voting for president (B. Obama, of course), a Florida state senator, about six judges, the Duval County clerk of court, some folks for the soil and water commission, and on a couple of state constitutional amendments (including pro-non-citizen property ownership rights and pro-gay marriage).

I've done my duty. If Obama loses, so will be forever lost the modicum of faith I have in the U.S. electoral system and its citizenry, and I will never vote again. What would be the point after that? This, from a political science major and former political campaign operative turned international blogger.

Here's hopin'.

Meanwhile, if some foul shit goes down in Florida, if they try to hoodwink us, bamboozle us, lead us astray, or run us amock like in 2000, my girl Cyndi got proof that at least one vote was cast for Barack Obama in Dade County: