The eagle has landed.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: UNPLUGGED - Bird-watching - Column

As little Catholic kids, we were trained to look for signs of God's presence in ourselves and in others. I also trained myself to look for signs from other little girls in my life. By fourth grade, I had totally secularized divination into a lifelong habit.

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But after November 8,I swore off signs. I had been so wrong about the election; I doubted my abilities. I had misread the enthusiasm gap. I had ignored the total lack of Hillary signage and swag. I had even dismissed the vandalism of my own Hillary sign in Provincetown as a mere prank.

For some people, coming out for Hillary was as awkward and hard as coming out as gay. I ignored that. I let it slide that there were just four of us at a Hillary headquarters in Tampa, Florida, the weekend before the election and that every other call I made from my authorized phone bank list was not in service.

The warning signs could have been billboard size. They could have been old Burma-Shave road signs: "Stay awake. Though Trump's a flake. If you snooze. Hill could lose." The signs were all there.

In the early blue morning hours, I can still work up a good head of shame for my pathetic denial. But it has forced me to be much more reality-based in my sign-reading.

At 6:30 on the morning of the twenty-fifth day of America Held Hostage, I was fuzzy-headed, sitting in my little kitchen in Manhattan having a cup of coffee. I had slept in. It was a miracle.

For months, screaming red banners of Waking News! chyroned madly across my REM-less sleep and jolted me awake at 3 a.m. I could never get back to sleep. If I counted sheep jumping over a fence, they became refugees trying to jump over a wall. If I tried to meditate, I would end up fantasizing things to do to Betsy DeVos with a ruler. My spiritual practice is a bust. Who tells NPR's Krista Tippett from "On Being" to shut the eff up? I would give up and get up. By noon, I would be cranky and despairing.

Yogi Bedtime Tea changed all that. Valerian is my new drug of choice. Until it comes in edible shooters, I'm double-bagging my hot elixir-fixer each night. I am a proud Teabagger.

That morning, even though I was two hours short of the doctor-recommended eight hours sleep, I felt rested. I was happily unfocused...