November 6

Today is my birthday and, like an extra treat, I had the day off from school.  It’s been such a tentative week, filled with hope at one moment and dread in the next so I slept in a bit.  Then, while I stood in the morning sun of the kitchen to pour my first cup of coffee, T came downstairs to let me know that Biden and Harris had taken a slim lead in the Georgia vote count.

In that moment, it felt like the morning sun shone a bit brighter.  The glow of that hopeful light has stayed with me all day.  The warmth of the day, the growing certainty in the outcome of this election, my confidence that help for our nation is truly on its way, has made for a very nice day.  After a nervous week, I can't stop smiling.  In this year of years, that alone is worth celebrating

Though I repeatedly told my students we would not know the outcome of this election on Tuesday, I hadn’t quite realized what that uncertainty would feel like.  I have spent the better part of the last four years convinced that November 3, 2020, would be the day we began the process to bail ourselves out of the disaster that is Donald Trump.  I never wavered in my confidence that he would lose re-election.  But as election day came to a close, though I knew we’d have to wait a few more days to know the outcome, for the first time since he took office I considered the prospect that Trump might win re-election.  

It made for a hard week.  Today, as the clouds cleared to reveal the blue skies of a Biden/Harris victory, I feel hope - real, true, and powerful hope - and I am so profoundly glad of it.  I sat in the backyard all afternoon and gloried in the feeing.  That's happy!

Election Day

On election day 2016, I came home and started to put together the snacks that would form our celebratory Election Night supper.  As I listened to the news on NPR, I sliced cheeses and set out crackers for our customary cheese tray.  I was excited and confident that the end of the night would see a Hillary Clinton victory.  I’d been waiting since I was 16 and at the age of 48 I would finally see a woman elected president.  

We all know how that turned out.

Since that day, we’ve had ample cause and time to regret the outcome of the 2016 election.  No more so than this year, when the steep cost of presidential incompetence shows itself in a daily death count that makes me heartsick.  For every cheese tray I’ve made since 2016 (and we love a cheese tray, so there have been plenty) there is a moment when I reflect on that horrible day in 2016.  I remember the day's excitement as it curdled to dismay and then fear.  I remember the dull anxiety that took hold as we waited out the last days of 2016 and the cold January day in 2017 when I listened too Donald Trump take the oath of office.  

Today is the start of taking back our government.  The list of problems that President Biden and the Democratic Congress will inherit is long and frightening.  But we are a nation filled with smart people who are willing to do the heavy lifting necessary to solve these problems.  And with a president and a Congress willing to lead,  a people willing toe compassionate and kind, it can be done.  It must be done.  This election is a referendum on whether or not we really believe that all of us are created equal and deserve liberty and justice for all.  With all of my heart, I know that the answer is yes.

Let’s. Go.

Election Day Eve

I have an app on my phone that I use to countdown to the anticipated events of life.  Most of the time, the events are the small treats that make up my happy world: a countdown to my birthday, or to a concert to which T and I have tickets, sometimes a countdown until JT comes home, or until the first day of Spring.  Nearly everything to which I look forward is lovely but not necessarily of major consequence.

And then there is the countdown I’ve been watching since the day Donald Trump took office in 2017 and I begin to hope and work toward a new president being elected in 2020.  It’s been a long, long time coming, this day.  I remember November 2019 when we reached 365 days until the 2020 election and I dared to think we might dodge a bullet.  

2020 said ha! to that and then some and as these long days of pandemic anxiety have ticked past I’ve measured time against the coming reckoning.  

Today, with election day just 24 hours away, I feel the first glimmers of lasting hope that I have felt since 2018, when Democrats did so well in Congressional elections.  I had hope in 2016 as well and nothing in the last four years has let me forget how hard that Electoral College loss proved to be.  This time around, fear and  uncertainty still loom; given what happened in 2016, I’m understandably nervous  But there has been so much activism and energy since then.  With each passing hour, I remind myself that lightening won’t strike twice.  Today, I feel excitement and hope that our nation may yet turn the corner from the self-induced wound that is Donald Trump.  And as the countdown ticks through its last hours, my hope grows and grows.

Frontyard Flowerbed in November

As if to prove that I can’t just wear flip flops forever, Mother Nature has delivered a cold rain for most of the past week.  Today is no exception.  

The last few nights have been cold and the front yard flowerbed has been worn down by it all.  

We’ve had one night of frost; more is surely on the way to join the shorter daylight that last night's time change brought us  As we slip into Winter’s cold and quiet, I have plans to clean out this flowerbed and plant some bulbs for next Spring.  The chore will likely wait until the week of Thanksgiving, when I look forward to my first week off from work since last Christmas.  Though it’s hard to say goodbye to warm days, I feel hope that this nation will turn a corner after Tuesday's election and that hope will keep me warm in the coming days.

Frontyard Flowerbed in October

The front yard garden is a tad overgrown and a bit ragged, as much from the last of the Summer heat as from cold overnight weather.

The hostas have been munched on by deers and rabbits.  Even so, the elephant ear hostas are still pretty and I admire them each day when I leave for work.  

In the coming week, Fall will truly take hold and leaves will begin to fall and collect all over the yard.  It's been a lovely growing season and I am sorry to see it go.  

The Degradation of Democracy

 For as long as I have taught classes on government and politics, I have taught my students that in a democracy citizens get the government that they deserve.  What I mean by that is that democracy requires cultivation.  There must be active participation of the citizens.  To function well, those citizens must do their part - they must try to be informed; they have to ask hard questions and search for real answers.  They must be prepared to reject the lies and deceptions of charlatans.  It’s not easy and it’s made frustrating by politics, the grab for power that all participants in the process sometimes engage in.  But the work to cultivate democracy must happen.  Failure of the citizens to do that work results in the degradation of democracy.  When that happens, the work to restore democracy becomes harder still because the citizens have lost the habits of good citizenship.

I thought of this as I watched the disaster that was Tuesday night’s presidential debate.  It was a real-time display of the shame our republic has become.  To be sure, at the heart of our current crisis is Donald Trump.  He cares only for himself, a fact made apparent over and over since he began his bid for the presidency.  That he has been enabled by a political party so eager to grab power that they are willfully blind to the damage they’ve done to the republic makes the situation much worse.    

On Tuesday night, Joe Biden lost his way more than I would have liked.  The yelling and shouting over one another in a time supposedly devoted to a serious conversation about our national path forward was disgraceful and further proof of the crisis we are in.  A candidate would have to be superhuman not to take the bait from Trump.  But even in the midst of it, Biden persistently regrouped, and sometimes acted like a responsible leader, redirecting the conversation to the needs of his fellow Americans.  It couldn’t have been easy to do; it certainly wasn’t easy to watch.

At the close of the night, as the president of all Americans refused to condemn white supremacy, it felt as if we had achieved a new national low.  In the midst of a series of national crises, including a pandemic he has deliberately and cruelly mismanaged, Donald Trump did what is no longer the unthinkable: he blew the racist dog whistle that he used when he first launched his malevolent ambitions.  This time it was less a whistle than it was a siren.

And so here we are, at a national low point willfully brought on by a man who lied when he swore to uphold our Constitution and the imperfect democratic republic that it created.  Trump is in it for himself and that could ruin us all.  We are in a crisis: a crisis of democracy, a crisis of conscience, and if the president succeeds in persuading his supporters that voting is flawed despite ample evidence that it is not, our low-grade Constitutional crisis will blow up with a fevered roar.  

There is a remedy and it can be found in the citizens.  We must actively participate; we must cast our ballots and we must follow that vote by putting in the hard work to cultivate our democracy.  We must recognize and believe that the whole of this nation is greater than its parts.  I have always believed that we have this power within us. I know the obstacles ahead but still I live in hope.

September Book Report: No Ordinary Time

All summer long, in preparation to once again teach 20th century history, I read (and re-read) books about the last century  One of the very best re-reads was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 1994 Pulitizer Prize winning history, No Ordinary Time, about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Home Front in WWII.  

The book is carefully researched and thorough; the context of the Roosevelt story is present as the narrative flows well and the reader is never in doubt as to the challenges of the period.  Neither is there doubt about the power of good, capable, strong, measured, and steadfast leadership.  Though the 1940s did not receive (or demand) the transparency that Americans now need in their leaders, neither was the secrecy of the era about deception or a cover for the ignorant and selfish cowardice that I see and hear so often from our current president and his political allies.  

If anything, Franklin Roosevelt took care to provide Americans with the truth always accompanied with a sense that together we could accomplish great things, not just for one another but also for the world.  I miss that sense that our national purpose must be greater than ourselves.  

In the very last speech that he wrote, in April of 1945, as the war in Europe was coming to a close, Roosevelt wrote words reminiscent of his oft-quoted, 1933 reminder that “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  This time writing, “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith,”  the president set the stage for the post-war challenges he knew his nation would face.  Roosevelt would never deliver the words in the form of speech because he died later in the day that he wrote them.  But the words are a solace and comfort today.  

I’ve read these words before but in early September, as I was ginning up for the start of a hybrid teaching school year and watching the events of our coming November election with anxiety-tinged hope, I thought again about our need to face fear and doubts with active faith.  The words have provided comfort throughout this month and, I suspect, they will give me hope for the rest of this crazy year. 

The Path Ahead

Lately, my favorite pictures to make with my phone are ones with a path at the center.  

It’s like my subconscious is cheering us on as we venture into the unknown.

I’ve worked very hard to remind myself to live in and appreciate the here and now.  These days. I’m able look toward the future’s uncertainty with a sense that new and manageable challenges await.  That’s a good thing, I believe.

A Good Day

T and I took a day over the weekend to go to one of our favorite places and stop by some farm stands along the way.  We came home in possession of a variety of Fall squashes and a jug of fresh apple cider.  Better than that, we came home relaxed.  We had a picnic at our favorite place up north and found that someone had left a smidge of sidewalk chalk on the table.  We put the chalk to good use.

The blue sky at Jenny Jump Park is nearly always a special shade of lovely.  The day was warm but we've had some cold nights and leaves are just starting to change.  As September merges into October, I am grateful for days like this; a reminder to relax my mind and find space to simply be.

Dogwood Mornings

Every morning I stand in the back windows of my house and admire the dogwood tree.  These days, it’s looking decidedly like Fall truly is on the horizon.

When October arrives next week, I’ll choose a day for a weekly dogwood picture.  Fall is lovely in the backyard and these days, I embrace all the beauty that I can find.