The networks called the race for president at 11:26 this morning, and the city erupted in cheers. Horns honked, voices hollered, and pots banged. We went to our windows and screamed with sweet relief. It was a beautiful inversion of the evening cheer in the early days of the pandemic—spontaneous and joyful because there’s some sense left in this nation after all. A collective exhale. I stood at my window, wiping away some tears.
Like a gift, it was seventy-five degrees and storybook weather in New York City today, so we filled the streets, strangers needing to look at one another to confirm that yes, this was real, as if waking from a terrible dream.
