I write this early Tuesday afternoon—November 5th, THE BIG DAY, the day we’ve been anticipating for months and months.
Obviously the future of our country hangs in the balance.
Around 4:00 o’clock this afternoon, the first voting places in the East will close, and networks will start tallying numbers.
We like John King and his Magic Wall—I love the way he touches a button to one side and a map is illuminated in various colors, red for Republican, blue for Democrat, showing us vividly where the state stands. Steve Kornacki at MSNBC has his youthful charm…we dial back and forth.
In a few hours—or will it be days?—America will gain a sense of the direction in which she’ll be headed for the next four years.
Change…slightly or radically.
I began thinking about transition when leaves of my mother’s fifty year-old ginkgo forest bonsai began turning apricot then gold then dropping. I love this period in the deciduous trees’ cycle…it is beautiful and moving. Soon the little trees will be completely bare, the better to appreciate their form, their relationships to one another in their forest.
No question it’s autumn—I had to be reminded which months are autumn (you’d think after eight decades of them I’d remember): September, October, November. When we go out for our walks now, I wear the woolen camp my daughter Amanda crocheted for me…
And then I thought about transition when we moved the clock back a bit ago…I was so happy to have an extra hour to sleep in that Sunday morning…but now I find it alarming when it gets dark so early. The sun will set at 5:06 pm today, for heaven’s sake! That’s terrible. Last time I looked, it was 8:00 pm-ish.
Back to our walks. Actually, in that department there’s another change. Until about two years ago, I walked Uschi (our six-year-old eighty-eight-pound German Shepherd) every day for a lovely mile along the edge of the continent. I listened to a book as we walked. The morning I was listening to the revelation of the crime in “Where the Crawdads Sing” and not watching the sidewalk ahead of me, I tripped and fell. Broke a bunch of stuff. Was told I couldn’t walk Uschi by myself anymore. Big blow. Bill walked her and I slogged along like a good wife. Unhappily.
But two years of CrossFit three-times-a-week gained strength in my arms and legs. One morning I forgot my walking stick–discovered I didn’t need it! had endurance and could step up on curbs just fine.
A couple of weeks ago Bill was stricken with a bout of sciatica so I took Uschi out by myself. Short run, but it went well. I’ve always been stricter with her walking—Bill lets her dawdle, smelling good smells here and there, I give her the Walk! command and expect her to obey.
Anyway. I’d given up walking the mile each day—didn’t want to do it alone. But buoyed by walking Uschi again, I returned to the mile walk, although regretfully I do it alone…she’s just too strong to handle. It takes me about thirty minutes (it was twenty-five BTF–Before The Fall) and I love it. I sleep better. Think better. And it’s helping me pare off the few inches I must lose to get back into the lovely grass-green corduroys I bought fifteen years ago in Ojai…
Today I’d promised myself I’d make get-out-the-vote-phone calls after voting— on Election Day I’ve ALWAYS gone to my local precinct and done phone banking (one year I found an old boyfriend on my calling list…chatted with him, asked if he’d voted Democratic as he was supposed to do…asked a couple of seemingly innocent questions…never identified myself…it was fun). But as you know, the world is not so simple as it used to be and alas, the procedure for phone banking proved just too complicated.
Instead I responded to a few frantic last-minute pleas for donations. Salved my conscience…a bit…
So I’m going into the kitchen and make my Fresh Ginger Cake (bought the heavy cream to whip on the way home from voting) in what I hope will be celebration. Then I’ll take my walk. Then we’re having all-American hot dogs and baked beans for supper (Cameron will have chili instead of baked beans).
I hope I’ll be around in four years for the next election. Then I will set myself up for phone banking on Election Day in ample time…
Thinking of Irving Berlin’s song, indeed God has blessed America. In abundance.
Me, too.
