One of the things I love about living in the Midwest is the change of seasons. You can tell it’s coming when the wind changes.

And like the wind signaling the start of fall, a wind of social change is in the air. There are a lot of us who have been waiting for a change. We’ve seen the course our country is on, and it scares us. Bankers run amok, leaders can’t lead, people are forever out of work, and it seems like the only answers we hear are tax breaks for rich folks or cutbacks for poor folks.

We have struggled, pleaded, begged, strategized and planned. We have tried like hell to bring about a change in the way this country is headed, to no avail. We kept asking ourselves, “What will it take? When will the people say ‘Enough!’ and hit the streets, mad as hell and ready for change?”

It seems like the winds have shifted, in our favor. Young people are occupying Wall Street. People are bringing trash from abandoned buildings to the banks that let them be abandoned. In Ohio, the people seem poised to beat back an especially ugly piece of anti-union legislation. Everywhere it seems people are getting ready, taking action, making change.

You can feel it in the air: A change is coming.

So what do we do now, those of us who worked s hard to help bring this change here? . We have to work even harder. Having people in the streets? That’s wonderful, but they have to be going somewhere. Demands for change are important, but we have to be able to say what kind of change. Momentum is everything in politics, but momentum can shift if you don’t have a solid foundation, a set of relationships, a core that you can count on.

So we have a lot more to do: Clarify our demands, recruit new allies, build a stronger movement.

So enjoy the winds of change. And then get back to work, because the road out of economic despair is long and hard. It’s a long road but at least now we have the wind at our back.