The Morning After

The nation is reflecting my tentative hope--and also my ambivalence!

Can I really dare to believe that someone I have some confidence in, faith in, likemindedness with, will actually make it out in November?

Is it possible that the 'other guys' are really gonna take back the party and step away from the fundamental, moralistic rhetoric? Almost too good to be true--except this is the morning after & it seems to be in-the-news and not just in my dreams.

For so long it's felt like we've been on this little island (almost falling off into the ocean) that is part of the disappearing thread of blue on either side of the country. That I'm on a bus that I have no similarity with my companion riders--and (worse yet!) with a crazed bus driver from a surrealistic world that I can't understand. But today it's starting to feel like there are little blue outcroppings all over the country--screaming to be heard. And there are many red outcroppings saying 'no more'. It's not quite a Tsunami--but it's enough for me today. I can keep going for a little while longer to see if the little sprout of hope actually takes root.

And it might be just in time--or even too late. Just heard a Terry Gross interview that chilled my blood (that was just starting to warm...). The newly unveiled Bush-Cheney budget has the largest military spending package since WWII--without including the 'extra' spending of the current war (just a small footnote, right?). We're talking in trillions of dollars here. Now I know that the 'proposed' budget is never what truly comes to pass, but we have ten more months to get through, and the 'legacy builders' most certainly will do their best to finish what they've started while we're all distracted with the November build up.

Today, though, I'm going to revel in Devin's (and his growing cohort's) heart-felt enthusiasm for just a little while longer--and feel encouraged. I will hope for the mobilization of every one of us that have felt paralyzed, or hopeless, or so isolated in our tiny blue worlds that we've stopped dreaming. I'm hoping for many more 'mornings after' like this one...it's a place to start.