The convenience of big dreams is that we don't expect them to come true. We write songs about them. We go to sleep with them. We even learn to recite them from memory in history class. You remember, “;We hold these truths to be self evident ...”; but our dreams pretty much grow old with us; they aren't supposed to happen for real.

Yet here we are, days after the most extraordinary presidential election of our lifetimes. America birthed and nurtured a man who possesses unique leadership skills and who happens to be black, and we have elected him president of the United States. To paraphrase Barack Obama, in no other country on Earth is this story even possible.

Before the tumultuous times and daunting world ahead swallow the moment, we need to freeze the frame and appreciate the whole picture. For we are at a turning point - when an ideal that was once a dream suddenly, indeed overnight, has become a new standard.

It means so much to so many. On a bus from the Denver Convention Center following the speech by Michelle Obama at the National Democratic Convention in August, a black woman who was a delegate from Union, N.J., told me what it meant to her. A single mom with two children, she spoke with the unbound passion of parental pride about her oldest boy in his second year of college.

“;What's most important to me,”; she said, “;Is that my son sees what Michelle and Barack have accomplished together. Because they model for him the one thing I never could: a successful marriage and how much it can mean.”;

There is no small paradox in the air. For in a presidential campaign where a narrow, pedantic and emotionally charged argument was driven by those greedy to claim a monopoly on patriotism, the country now abounds in national pride to be shared by everyone with the will. There are many millions of Americans of every imaginable demographic to whom this election speaks very personally of justice, redemption, hope and what is best about our country. And for the record, we owe considerable thanks to John McCain, whose gracious concession speech praised the historic significance of the election and re-rooted all of us in uplifting principles. Democracy is always a work in progress.

Now let's see if we can hold in mind that there is no boiler plate for love of country and that its expressions are many. Patriotism is not so much what you say or if you wear a flag pin as it is what you do and how you contribute to our society.

Ultimately it is the theme of common ground that has resonated throughout this campaign. A high point came last March when Barack Obama sat us down to talk about race, religion and the universal political choices we have as Americans. In the heat of the campaign, we were calmly reminded that “;if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.”;

Since March, America's condition has worsened substantially. The grade of the hill is many degrees steeper, and we must mobilize and channel our collective will “;to come together”; and climb it as urged by our president-elect. It will take a strong and resilient country. It will require international partners and a new sense of world citizenry and stewardship.

But for the moment, let's take heart in the change that has been achieved by the election itself - by the joy it has brought and by the social progress it promises. Most of us are seeing a day we thought would never happen, a dream we never would have dreamed. Even more important, for the generation born under President Obama, our dream will become their reality. A lofty ideal will become an essential standard, a new bedrock to build upon and make democracy ever more vibrant. And society will grow from there with brand-new dreams that few believe will happen. But they just might.

In the next generation, the right skin color, the sound of a name and a person's sex will not be prerequisite for rightful leadership. And though it might take a whole new generation for this standard to fully ingrain itself, a great corner has been turned, destiny is at our back and what was a dream is a dream no more.