deja vu all over again, or, philosophical ramblings on the reality of election day
today i have a very strange feeling that i haven't felt for a couple of years--it's been there all week & it's taken me some effort to identify it, but last night i finally figured it out... i have election anxiety. i'm sure that many of you, or that is, the 2 of you who might actually read this ;), are surprised that anyone who is true blue living in, arguably, the reddest state in the union, would have any anxiety whatever about elections... how could i not be moving about like a rat in a maze, submitting to the process because i have bought into the notion that, despite its foregone conclusion, it is good for me? that it's merely my job, my duty, but nothing more, nothing less, nothing to get excited about. not a chance to stand up & be heard like a clarion trumpet burst in the bright blue of the morning, but rather, only a chance to shake my tiny fist & swear i wasn't wrong (all due thanks to TMBG's john & jon). but take note, and heart, my dear friends: everything in idaho is not yet a foregone conclusion.
that's right. despite rumors to the contrary, the progressive movement may be starting to make its presence felt in, of all places, as eac once called it, "the great aryan nation of idaho." i have a pal who works for the state democratic party, who has been traveling all over the state in grass roots efforts, doing what i'm sure is a stressful, thankless job on many days, and one for which i admire him greatly, and from what he says, we, the left (or what passes for it in idaho), actually have a chance today. a chance at the governorship changing hands, and one or both of our congressional seats going blue. we've got a shot at increasing state funding for education with a 1-cent increase in our sales tax (how can this even be something people are loathe to support? the chief argument against it is that some of the money may be used to increase teacher salaries--the shock! the horror!). while the state resolution to ban gay marriage will likely, overwhelmingly, pass, just the fact that the other things remain open questions is enough to give one a certain degree of hope...
and it is that hope which delights me and yet causes me pain, makes me tense for what i fear will be the knee-jerk reaction learned nearly 6, and repeated ad nauseum, a mere 2 short years ago, the deep knowledge of defeat and despair... it is my hope that i can trust in my faith in my fellow citizens' ability to do some critical thinking and rational analysis of the current administration's abject and terrible failures and crimes, in so many arenas, on both the domestic and foreign stages, and to then deduce what i feel is the only sane and logical conclusion, to leave compassion and nuanced understanding of the shared fate of all humanity out of it for just one minute, to realize beyond the shadow of all doubt that this cannot and will not stand for one more day, and that my faith is not misplaced, that americans are not yet to be cast entirely into the pit of despair and ruination... that hope is causing my heart to beat just a little bit faster, making me want to run right now, fast and far, away from the dead reckoning of this day which can and may crush it inside me once again, grinding it into little useless embers of pulsing regret that i can't even brush a finger alongside, lest the sharp blood-red pain come flooding back once again.
i know this may seem terribly tragicomic and overly dramatic to some, and if i were you, i might even take the kindly, friendly step of putting a virtual arm around my own shoulders & reminding myself that to hope in the state of idaho for progressive change ties one to the teaspoon and the ocean. shadow-me thinks someone, probably shadow-me myself, ought to pull the real me away from the tiny fire of that hope, before i get in any way used to its warmth & light, to content myself with the idea that it should just be enough to have felt that hope again, to have thought, for however long, that such a thing were possible, even here in the heart of the gem state, my currently-chosen estranged home. but i have to admit that while it *should* be enough, that i ought to take heart that while it cannot happen here, it may happen elsewhere, and that i may be carried by the tide that lifts all boats, it is not. it should be enough, but i checked our voting system nonetheless, and came over a bit giddy when i learned that we will be using old-fashioned punch card ballots, able to be counted by impartial judges in a single bound, or at least, a single month. not that there will need to be a recount. not that it will even be that close. it can't be. it won't be. this is idaho, for goodness' sake. idaho.
and yet i hope.
and for this, i don't know who to thank or blame, who to take my hope to, who to take my despair to, where to deposit the heavy burden of 6 years of anguish & frustration & shame & anger & confusion, which altar i could lay all these things upon, whereupon to light that damned candle instead of cursing our collective national darkness and ignorance. if i knew where, would it make a difference? if i did make my offering, say our collective penance, forgive others' past sins & grab on to the idea that something could change, start anew, is there any point to any of this, any of this at all, here? in idaho?
at this moment, i am like to think of my old friend hope as my new enemy. i don't like how that feels, and i don't know what to do with it. i mean, i don't know what to *DO* with it. in my list of things i have learned in the world absolutely, the very short list that begins the very first post of this sometime blog, i know for certain that life rewards action. so now, i am about to go out and do the only thing that i can do. i'm going out to vote. and to hope. and to hope *for* hope, and not against hope. for i think that being against hope is to be against being human. and if that is the case, i--and we--are already lost.
so before i read a single word or listen to a single story about exit polls and precincts reporting, before it's a done deal and an indelible deed, i wish you your own hope and your vote. in the most human of all benedictions, peace be with each of you today.
that's right. despite rumors to the contrary, the progressive movement may be starting to make its presence felt in, of all places, as eac once called it, "the great aryan nation of idaho." i have a pal who works for the state democratic party, who has been traveling all over the state in grass roots efforts, doing what i'm sure is a stressful, thankless job on many days, and one for which i admire him greatly, and from what he says, we, the left (or what passes for it in idaho), actually have a chance today. a chance at the governorship changing hands, and one or both of our congressional seats going blue. we've got a shot at increasing state funding for education with a 1-cent increase in our sales tax (how can this even be something people are loathe to support? the chief argument against it is that some of the money may be used to increase teacher salaries--the shock! the horror!). while the state resolution to ban gay marriage will likely, overwhelmingly, pass, just the fact that the other things remain open questions is enough to give one a certain degree of hope...
and it is that hope which delights me and yet causes me pain, makes me tense for what i fear will be the knee-jerk reaction learned nearly 6, and repeated ad nauseum, a mere 2 short years ago, the deep knowledge of defeat and despair... it is my hope that i can trust in my faith in my fellow citizens' ability to do some critical thinking and rational analysis of the current administration's abject and terrible failures and crimes, in so many arenas, on both the domestic and foreign stages, and to then deduce what i feel is the only sane and logical conclusion, to leave compassion and nuanced understanding of the shared fate of all humanity out of it for just one minute, to realize beyond the shadow of all doubt that this cannot and will not stand for one more day, and that my faith is not misplaced, that americans are not yet to be cast entirely into the pit of despair and ruination... that hope is causing my heart to beat just a little bit faster, making me want to run right now, fast and far, away from the dead reckoning of this day which can and may crush it inside me once again, grinding it into little useless embers of pulsing regret that i can't even brush a finger alongside, lest the sharp blood-red pain come flooding back once again.
i know this may seem terribly tragicomic and overly dramatic to some, and if i were you, i might even take the kindly, friendly step of putting a virtual arm around my own shoulders & reminding myself that to hope in the state of idaho for progressive change ties one to the teaspoon and the ocean. shadow-me thinks someone, probably shadow-me myself, ought to pull the real me away from the tiny fire of that hope, before i get in any way used to its warmth & light, to content myself with the idea that it should just be enough to have felt that hope again, to have thought, for however long, that such a thing were possible, even here in the heart of the gem state, my currently-chosen estranged home. but i have to admit that while it *should* be enough, that i ought to take heart that while it cannot happen here, it may happen elsewhere, and that i may be carried by the tide that lifts all boats, it is not. it should be enough, but i checked our voting system nonetheless, and came over a bit giddy when i learned that we will be using old-fashioned punch card ballots, able to be counted by impartial judges in a single bound, or at least, a single month. not that there will need to be a recount. not that it will even be that close. it can't be. it won't be. this is idaho, for goodness' sake. idaho.
and yet i hope.
and for this, i don't know who to thank or blame, who to take my hope to, who to take my despair to, where to deposit the heavy burden of 6 years of anguish & frustration & shame & anger & confusion, which altar i could lay all these things upon, whereupon to light that damned candle instead of cursing our collective national darkness and ignorance. if i knew where, would it make a difference? if i did make my offering, say our collective penance, forgive others' past sins & grab on to the idea that something could change, start anew, is there any point to any of this, any of this at all, here? in idaho?
at this moment, i am like to think of my old friend hope as my new enemy. i don't like how that feels, and i don't know what to do with it. i mean, i don't know what to *DO* with it. in my list of things i have learned in the world absolutely, the very short list that begins the very first post of this sometime blog, i know for certain that life rewards action. so now, i am about to go out and do the only thing that i can do. i'm going out to vote. and to hope. and to hope *for* hope, and not against hope. for i think that being against hope is to be against being human. and if that is the case, i--and we--are already lost.
so before i read a single word or listen to a single story about exit polls and precincts reporting, before it's a done deal and an indelible deed, i wish you your own hope and your vote. in the most human of all benedictions, peace be with each of you today.