A Dawning Light - Election Day Will Never Be The Same

Lauren and I welcomed our firstborn on September 14, 2020, when the COVID insanity was at its peak: we were all still walking ONE WAY down the frozen food aisle at ACME, some people were voting two months early through JCPenny catalogs, and expecting mothers were told to keep paper masks over their mouths while they labored through child birth—all to save the world.

We named our baby Aurora, after the Roman goddess of the dawn, who renews herself every morning as she trapses across the sky announcing the coming of the sun.

*The Goddess Aurora triumphing over Night* by Jean-Honore Fragonard

On my side of the family especially, that is what Aurora represented—the coming of a long-awaited new day, the sprouting of a new branch in the family tree, and some much needed youthful energy running around the living room during the Holidays. She’s quickly becoming one of my best friends to boot.

Now you’d be correct in pointing out that it usually doesn’t take six years for the sunrise to follow the dawn, but that’s how it worked out for us. And like her namesake, Aurora couldn’t wait to herald the arrival of her baby sister, whom we named Luciana, from the Latin word for light.

*Aurora beaming on the day we told her the good news. March 24, 2026*

We presented ourselves to Labor & Delivery on the afternoon of November 2nd, not quite sure on which side of midnight our youngest would arrive, but Luciana, true to her own name, waited through the night until the delivery room was awash in golden autumn morning light.

Sunbeams cut through the fiery red tops of the oak trees that have stood guard outside Greenwich Hospital for generations, and soon after this picture was taken, our doctor came in to tell us that the time had come.

Twenty minutes later, at 9:10am, Luciana was born.

“It’s Morning Again in America”

On any other Election Day I would be preparing to burn the midnight oil on air, calling House seats, governorships, and the like; taking calls, talking people down from ledges.

*War Room, First Studio, Election 2012. Producers and Interns set up shop to call states faster than anyone on* *Ustream.tv*

This year I found myself in a transcendent state, floating above the cyclical torture we are subject to when we are dialed into the news cycle. From my back-breaking perch on that pathetic excuse for a couch in the maternity ward, I could feel the whole non-stop panic broadcast—about threats to “Democracy”, threats to the oceans, or the plight of indigenous lesbian underwater basket weavers—melt away.

I felt the least retarded I had felt in a long time.

It reminded me of other times I’d felt this way. I felt it on my wedding day in 2017, on the day Aurora was born, and again in 2024 when Lauren and I renewed our vows. I’ve felt it countless times onstage, playing shows with my band, or leaving the studio after a broadcast that resonated with the audience in a satisfying way, or taking a moment to soak in a room filled with friends and family who surprised me with a visit for my fortieth birthday. It’s that feeling of being in the flow, knowing you’re exactly where you need to be, and are supercharged by an eye-watering sense of gratitude.

Whatever the occasion, whenever I found myself in that state, I always asked the same question: How do I bottle this feeling? And how do I pass it on to others through my work?

It’s what draws me back to the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914, when British and German soldiers—young boys—stopped killing each long enough to play a game of soccer in No Man’s Land and sing Christmas carols together. Just long enough to feel human before being called back to the slaughter, fighting a war forced upon them by an earlier generation of bankers and bureaucrats.

*British and German soldiers during the Christmas truce of 1914 in WWI*

Notice how many times we’re all being called back to the slaughter. Notice on those days when the veil drops and we lose our distractions for a little while…you begin to notice seemingly infinite number of little miracles and marvels happening all around you. How long does it last before something calls you back to someone else’s war?

For some that call came in the form of artillery shells bursting over a French countryside in 1914. For others it could be a weepy news reporter, a histrionic Congresswoman, a tax notice from the IRS, or that persistently unfriendly sabotaging voice in your own head.

These calls to war are preventing us from truly restoring the country we love. Understanding that makes the ballot box seem secondary.

REJOICE EVERMORE!

There's a deeply beautiful scene in the HBO series, John Adams, that takes place at the end of Adams' life. As a 90-year-old John Adams walks with his son, Thomas, he pauses to marvel at a tiny blossom along a pathway on their family estate.

“I have seen a queen of France with 18 million livres of diamonds on her person,” Adams says, “but I declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels did not inspire me as much as that little shrub there.

“Your mother always said that I never delighted enough in the mundane,” he said, "but now, I find if I look at even the smallest thing . . . my imagination begins to roam the Milky Way.

“Rejoice evermore. Rejoice evermore! REJOICE EVERMORE! . . . Oh, I wish that had always been in my heart and on my tongue. I am filled with an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees in adoration . . .”

This Election Day, I think I got a little closer to bottling that feeling. By every political measure, it was a disastrous day for people who love the United States of America and the vision upon which it was founded. But Election Days come and go, and with them the victories and the defeats…but so goes life itself with the same quickness…and we ought to spend more time delighting in the mundane and marveling at the shrubs along the trail.