November 3rd, 2020 – Tuesday (Covid-19 = 93,581 new cases yesterday and more than 237,000 deaths in US to date … and today we have a voice.)
It is Election Day in the US today. My body (first) woke up at 5:40 am … the middle of the night for me. I went back to sleep. I woke up again at what could be called our sunrise at 7:03 … not much of a sun anything today as it’s mizzly and gray. I went back to sleep, again.
But, before I did I wrote a blog post … just in my head … about today’s significance. About good and evil. About having our voices heard. And when I fell asleep those words swirling around in my head were absorbed into my pillow and lost … and you now get 10:28 me. I’ve been up for a while – hoping that those words would come back to me – but they have not. Gone back to whence they came! But, damn … they were good ones!
So, here I am trying to recall from my dreamscape what I was thinking and nothing is coming forward. Except this … somewhere between today’s sunrise and tomorrow’s our lives will change.
And I’m hoping that they change for the better because I don’t like this balancing act. And, now, as I sit here – looking out my front window onto the gray skies and my silver maple that turned mustard yellow in the last day (somewhere from sunrise to sunrise) – I realize how much change is needed. I don’t like that this is what life looks like except for when it’s actually dark out. We have gray and dark. Literally and figuratively. And I feel like that is apparent in too many aspects of our lives. Covid, civil unrest, climate change/Mom Nature ravages, lost jobs, lost loved ones, isolation/loneliness, financial burdens, exhaustion, worrying, kids/elders, political craziness. Sometimes we get a slanting of sun … like a video of a hippo twirling in water (thanks Fiona/Cincy Zoo) … but life does need to change. For all of us.
And whether or not we like the outcome of this election.
Life in the balance. The balance of life. Balance. I haven’t had much lately. I’ve been very lopsided. It’s been Covid, eyeballs, isolation and politics … and mostly missing my life. I miss my friends. I miss my family. Missing what was or could be. Worried about what is or might be.
I voted weeks ago – by mail as is how it’s done in WA. Easy-peasy. People are fools if they think there are issues with this method of voting. The United States Postal Service delivers 472.1 MILLION pieces of mail EVERY DAY. Well, except Sundays and holidays. It also processes 182 MILLION pieces of first-class mail every day … so (doing the math) on average, it processes 19.7 million mail pieces each hour … 327,838 each minute and 5,464 each second. Pretty impressive. I think they can handle things.
Estimates for 2020 mail-in voting are around 67,000,000-80,000,000 … more than double what was mailed in in 2016. But, with the Postal Service’s record of handling so much mail on any given day – why the big fuss about the ballots? They’ll get where they need to – all in a day’s work!
Unless of course, those ballots are derailed by idiots thwarting a fair election and cheating their asses off to do whatever possible to win! Voter suppression is wildly and openly happening and shame on everyone doing anything of that kind. That is a criminal offense (state and federal) and I hope everyone doing anything is duly “rewarded” for their actions. How stupid can someone be to do that? And lose their own right to vote in the process! Pretty stupid. We’ve seen what is going on. Pretty damn stupid and utterly pathetic. And yet – our current President leads the way with these actions. Disgraceful.
And to set the record straight on this election day – I don’t care what party anyone favors. Just because a person favors the Republican party … doesn’t mean they automatically carry a gun. Nor does it mean that the Democrat is off skipping in a meadow, smoking pot and singing Kumbaya. What I don’t understand is blind following … throwing out people’s own decency by staying true to their party. Either party. WTF. Vote for the best person/people. In this election I truly have NO idea how anyone can think that Trump is that person. He is a disgusting human being. Forget everything else that he’s said and done and just focus on this one thing … we’ve all seen Trump make fun of the disabled. It’s on tape. He did it in a speech at one of his rallies and appalling as that was – it was gut-wrenching to see/hear his supporters laugh along with him. Where is the humanity? If that same group saw a middle schooler doing that – would they say something or would they laugh at that, too? People are standing with guns in front of voter collection boxes – even here on the island. Why are people from that party allowing this? I think if you turn a blind eye you are just as guilty. I don’t get it.
But, I never have.
When I voted, I voted for the Biden/Harris ticket. Even if Trump had done everything else perfectly … squashed Covid by April, economy and growth were good, jobs were soaring, international relations were best yet, every person who needed help got it, affordable housing, education and daycare were free, homelessness/racism/hunger/poverty were no longer issues, universal healthcare was intact, fair wages and no sexism/agism/color inequity were all in order. You know, and a chicken in every pot! Everything including world peace … and I STILL would not have voted for him – just for the decency factor alone.
This election I voted for decency.
I’ve said it before that Biden was not my first choice (or second or third) … but if a llama had the chance of defeating Trump this time around, I would have voted for the camelid.
But when I voted BLUE … I voted (as I always do) for the best people (at this time) to take us forward. I voted for honor, respect, character. I voted for compassion, strength, knowledge, experience and intellect. I voted for families and children, healthcare and education, jobs and fair wages. I voted for balance and rights and love and help. I voted for unity, trust, tolerance and our future. I voted for truth and conduct and equity in all ways. I voted for science and climate change. I voted for protection of lands and animals. I voted for fairness and humanity. I voted for clean air and water. I voted for goodness and kindness and principle. I voted for our international allies. I voted for decency and for our democracy. I voted for America. In a nutshell … I voted for the soul of our country.
I know people talk about taxes … and they should be fair. I hate the big tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy. Everyone should pay what they need to pay. I hear grumblings of “socialism” that some people think the Democratic Party is now representing. Well, hate to break it to some people but how do you think hospitals, fire/police departments, the post office, schools, roads, bridges, zoos, museums, parks, and the like are paid for?
Today marks not just 4 years of angst but probably 5 or 6 – when Trump reared his ugly, coiffed head and threw his name into the political race game. It’s been ongoing since. I can’t take much more. And hopefully, we all won’t have to. The day after Trump’s election (I’m still shocked) in 2016, he was talking about 2020. The very day after. So, we’ve been hearing him spew about MAGA for all this time. From where I sit … things don’t look so great, Donny.
And what happens if “things” don’t go the way I hope? The way so many of us hope and need it to?
I’m writing this on Tuesday morning. We have hours of polling left until the polls close … and I hope you’ve encouraged anyone who had not voted yet to do so because by the time you read this – it will be all over. As in ALL over. I think we’ll know sooner than later the results. I hope things are peaceful and calm. I think America (and the world) will know before sunrise tomorrow. So, when you read this – I’m hoping it’s with a lighter heart. A sigh of relief. A weight lifted from your shoulders. I know I need that.
But what happens if the unthinkable happens … again?
We’ll throw a little hissy fit. We’ll swear under our breaths … or out loud. We might curse humanity or god or the system. We might wish unwanted things to happen to unsaid individuals but we won’t do them. And we won’t go and destroy our towns and burn things down. And as disappointing as it’ll be – for a moment, we’ll feel a teeny tiny bit better for throwing that hissy fit and cursing at the walls. But then reality will seep in and we’ll realize that America as we’ve known it in the past has died. And we’ll grieve.
I truly hope that is not the case … but if it is, somehow, we will go forward. We will continue to go on. We will continue to make a difference. We will continue to help our neighbors. We will show that we will be okay by our daily actions and how we live our lives with purpose and decency and a deep hope that what we do will make a better tomorrow. And it will because that light that shines in all of us will lead us forward to another sunrise.