Well, that felt good.
For a little context: I turned 18 the month after the 1996 election. (Did you do the math? Yes, 30 is rapidly approaching.) So the only elections I've been able to vote in were 2000 and 2004, in which I was, um, less than pleased with the results. And I'm not trying to be counting chickens before they're hatched or anything - either way this year turns out, I'm just glad I was able to cast a vote for a candidate I believed strongly in, not just one who was better than the other guy. (No offense, Al Gore. You should have done a better job showing us your values and your character during, you know, your campaign.)
I'm at work now; I'll be working for another hour and a half. By the time I'm leaving, many of the polls on the east coast will have closed. Results will have started to trickle in. I know I'll turn on the npr as soon as I hit the car, and will probably not turn it off until I know what happened. I can't go to sleep without knowing. Have you been on edge all day? I know I have. It feels like it is completely not hyperbole to say that tomorrow, everything could be different.
Oh, and if the straw polls in the local schools are any indication, it'll be a landslide for Obama.
I'll leave you with a poem today. I've never posted a poem on the blog before - I'm not really a big reader of poetry - but today seems like a good day for some beautiful words.
ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884
Walt Whitman
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara - nor you, ye limitless prairies - nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite - nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones - nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes - nor Mississippi's stream:
This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating -America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen - the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd - sea-board and inland - Texas to Maine - the Prairie States - Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West - the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling - (a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's): the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity - welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
- Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify - while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
For a little context: I turned 18 the month after the 1996 election. (Did you do the math? Yes, 30 is rapidly approaching.) So the only elections I've been able to vote in were 2000 and 2004, in which I was, um, less than pleased with the results. And I'm not trying to be counting chickens before they're hatched or anything - either way this year turns out, I'm just glad I was able to cast a vote for a candidate I believed strongly in, not just one who was better than the other guy. (No offense, Al Gore. You should have done a better job showing us your values and your character during, you know, your campaign.)
I'm at work now; I'll be working for another hour and a half. By the time I'm leaving, many of the polls on the east coast will have closed. Results will have started to trickle in. I know I'll turn on the npr as soon as I hit the car, and will probably not turn it off until I know what happened. I can't go to sleep without knowing. Have you been on edge all day? I know I have. It feels like it is completely not hyperbole to say that tomorrow, everything could be different.
Oh, and if the straw polls in the local schools are any indication, it'll be a landslide for Obama.
I'll leave you with a poem today. I've never posted a poem on the blog before - I'm not really a big reader of poetry - but today seems like a good day for some beautiful words.
ELECTION DAY, NOVEMBER, 1884
Walt Whitman
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara - nor you, ye limitless prairies - nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite - nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyserloops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones - nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes - nor Mississippi's stream:
This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name - the still small voice vibrating -America's choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen - the act itself the main, the quadrennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd - sea-board and inland - Texas to Maine - the Prairie States - Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West - the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling - (a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's): the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity - welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
- Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify - while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
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