Here we go!

20 January 2021: I have used this post's title a few times to mark the first day of a new semester, which always feels like the beginning of a journey. I'm always full of anticipation and a bit of anxiety (I still can't sleep well the night before) and promise. And I always welcome the return to the rhythms of the semester. 

Of course, the post's title has additional resonance today, on the day I watched Joe Biden and Kamala Harris take their oaths of office. I was sitting at my desk between classes, a mask hanging from my ear, in a very quiet building at the start of another very different semester. (Only 25% of classes are in person.) I texted with my college group as we watched together in four different states. An inauguration day like no other, but one that absolutely reflected our current moment. 

My emotions are a simultaneous mix of grief, anger, hope, and joy. It has been an absolutely brutal four years, worse than I could have imagined. There is so much to do and things are going to hard for so long. 

But here we go, you know? A decent man in the Oval Office. A Black, Asian-American woman VP who made me not just cry but sob at my desk when she took the oath. One of my favorite rhetorical moves President Biden deploys is one he repeated in his speech: "Don't tell me things can't change." Lord, even as I type that, I tear up again. They can. They must. We can do it. 

So, on so many levels, here we go...