Monday June 13: As I pull up to my son’s elementary school, my breath catches at the sight of the American flag at half-mast. It’s a symbol I associate with fallen war heroes, with uniforms and helmets. It’s also a symbol I associate with DOMA, and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and an unchecked AIDS epidemic in the nineteen-eighties.  They mourn us. My own thought startles me. They mourn us when we die now.

Wednesday, June 15: It’s noon when I learn that Senator Chris Murphy is staging a filibuster to insist that the Senate vote on gun control legislation. My heart leaps. Something is happening in real time.  I click on a link to open the live stream and leave it open on my desktop all day. I can’t get any work done while it’s playing, so I listen for three minutes at a time, pause it for a while, and then check in again.The filibuster isn’t boring; it’s not what I’ve been taught to picture: a man in a tweed suit wiping sweat from his brow and reading from the phone book. Instead, each time I open the live stream, I see senators delivering considered, impassioned words. I see Elizabeth Warren invoking the names of those lost in Orlando; I see Senator Dick Durbin tell his colleagues, “If you use an AK-47 to hunt a deer, you should stick to fishing.”

Late that night, once my kids are asleep and my house is finally quiet I go online and see that it’s still going on. Everyone in my circle is tweeting with the hashtag #filibuster.

HOW CAN YOU SLEEP WHEN DEMOCRACY THIS LIT #filibuster

— All The Way Up (@ankurthakkar) June 16, 2016

I have it too; I have the fever. I stay up past midnight. For the first time in a long time, I feel hope for our government. I see our officials working their asses off to push through legislation that they know their constituents support. I read speculation about how Senator Murphy can hold the floor for so long without a bathroom break. I am brimming over with gratitude for all the senators who took the floor.

At the same time: I doubt. I read forecasts that a vote on basic gun control measures still won’t pass and, sadly, I believe them. I brood over the senators who vote nay on these measures time after time and wonder how they sleep at night.

Friday, June 17:  It’s raining as I scramble across campus in my black cap and gown. I’m on my way to attend commencement at the community college where I work. By the time I reach my seat the rain has stopped, but the dark clouds loom.

Our president opens with words about Orlando. He comes out to the crowd of thousands as a member of the LGBTQ community, and spends some moments reminding us of the legacy of hate that his people have faced. Our people. I notice I’m not breathing. Instead I am sitting there frozen, feeling like one vulnerable body in a sea of bodies. I wonder if I were straight, would I feel this exposed? I look around the crowd and wonder who is listening, and who might be rolling their eyes, looking at their watch, wondering why we have to be talking about the gays, about tragedy and guns, when they just came to watch their nephew or daughter or cousin walk across the stage and be handed a diploma.

Our college president invites us to honor the 49 lives lost as the bagpipes play Amazing Grace. The bagpipes. They seem to stutter their way into the song and for a moment the whole thing seems wildly absurd and I stifle a laugh. But then the music lifts, and the sun comes out–sudden and blinding and hot. I lift my hand to shade my eyes. It’s one of those moments where even if you don’t believe in God, you can at least understand how someone could. You understand how someone might think that there’s an order to things, that the world runs on grace and forgiveness, and that even in tragedy the light that we bring to each other somehow gets recycled.