As the River Rises
"Oh give me a homeWhere the nutria roammmmAnd the deer and the racoons playyyyyy..."We've had record rains and the river has overflowed its banks. Lucy sits on watch as dusk falls, waiting for the nutria to swim out of the cold water and dry themselves on the grass below our window. Usually, she barks. I had to be told they were nutria, of course. I had hopes that they were some kind of beaver (the state animal!) with a skinny tail. Nope. Nope. They're just big water rats.
I won't make the obvious parallels to politics. It's just too easy. But I was encouraged when, in D.C. last week, I heard that a friend's rabid Republican sister who'd moved to town a year ago to kill environmental progress had quit her job and was moving back to where she came from. A victim of the election. Score!
And so the tide turns in Washington. These are nice times to be there. I'd miss it if it were still the place I once loved. Instead I'm learning to love another place.
The End of the Beginning of 9/11
"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
-- Winston Churchill, November 10, 1942
It's taken me awhile to settle down since Tuesday. It was my busy time at work and Election Day - though happy - went on waaaay too long for this ol' girl. And it took a few days for all the results to come in and learn we got the Senate. I had to search out George Allen's concession speech just to make sure I'd heard it right. It was a lovely speech to watch. I highly suggest you Google/You Tube it.
As the numbness has worn off, I've come to see that this election is the other end of the 9/11 bookend set. What started with a terrible tragedy and a horrific day ended with us redefining ourselves as a country of pre-emptive war. I don't think that's what those people died for.
We've been cowed for five and a half years as citizens and consumers. We've been asked to shop instead of shrug off fear because all we had to fear was fear itself. We've been asked to swallow huge budget deficits and corruption because we were chattel. I know the feeling. I'm from Washington, D.C.
Last Tuesday's election proved that the country really could stand up and be counted. I hear the national turnout was around 40%. Here in Vote by Mail Oregon, it was 70%. I heard of three hour lines at polling places in Idaho where people stood in the cold until they could get inside, warm their hands, and mark their ballots. Lines in Tennessee were even longer. That kind of participation can't be faked or manipulated. That kind of voting is real. I love it. It means people still believe. It means there's hope.
So Tuesday was the end of the beginning of 9/11. The warrior ways we embraced after that awful day have proven empty and their proponents voted out. We turned our back on them. We've turned a corner. Even if another terrorist attack happened today its repercussions would be different. I truly believe we'd try another route than the last failed strategy.
I know this period of mourning. It's a good corner to turn. Onward and upward.
To Kill an Election Mockingbird
It's been an eerie weekend in Oregon. Like clockwork, the Fall rains came the day after Halloween. As a friend describes it, we have 9 months of rain followed by 3 months of drought. Lucy and I have had many mornings in the fog at Riverside Park. It's a good time to see egrets and herons on the barely seen river.
Tonight I walked Lucy in the dark behind the warehouses and over the railroad tracks. The lights are few and far between in Salem - like any city in this state - and when they appear you feel like you're back on a movie set.
Trains whistle through this town regularly. One is echoing past us now, a reminder to always look both left AND right when crossing an intersection. The factory next door processes green beans. Graffiti-ed cars get parked and loaded, carrying those Oregon beans to exotic climes like Detroit.
Walking through these empty places in the dark, in the autumn, can only bring up To Kill a Mockingbird. The night is windy and chimes that never move are being thrashed about. It's time for Boo to make his appearance.
And I'm not only thinking of Election Day, but of course I am. The anxiousness I feel is real and emanates from the woods like those in the movie.
Tuesday night we'll know what's lurking in the woods, but until then, we have to live in the reality of fear and the unknown of change. It's a familiar feeling in Fall in general, for me at least. This year, with so much at stake and so much invested in the future, it all seems dark and personal.
Vote, vote, vote - even in the rain!
-- dcnative
"Oh give me a home
