If We Keep Our Eyes Closed….

I rode the bus to work Monday morning with my eyes shut. Well, with my eyes shut as long as I could, anyway. Call it research. Have you ever tried that, moving forward blindly? It’s difficult to do. You just never know what’s coming up, who’s staring at you, who’s waiting to trip you just to see you fall. I don’t recommend it.

It is now Tuesday, Election Day in the U.S. And in a way, today, we’ll all be riding the bus with our eyes closed…

Where are we going? Who’s driving? If I pull the cord, and keep pulling the cord, but no one stops the bus, should I keep my eyes shut? Should I warn the others?

By the time you read this, Willie and I will have voted with the other early-morning hopefuls in our usual neighborhood polling place: a very, very warm rent-assisted high-rise that smells regrettably of strong detergent, urine, and oatmeal.

As a quick aside, why? Why does it always smell of urine there? A question, surely, for minds greater than my own, but it does make you stop a bit, doesn’t it? The food smell is understandable, but why the urine? People sure aren’t using the hallways as toilets, are they?

Are they?

To paraphrase an old saying, You should never defecate where you slumber.

Which brings us back to the election and my research into moving, blindly. Yes, Minnesota gets dark in the winter, but the darkness is more than just the lack of light. For some, it is a refusal to acknowledge that it’s dark out; one cannot close one’s eyes and say, “But of course it’s dark! My eyes are shut!”

Let’s open our eyes.

By the end of this election day, we will know; and perhaps there will be a little more light.

Dark or light, however, I have plans to drink Tuesday evening, either in celebration or in despair.

Hey. It’s the Midwest. It’s what we do.

My best wishes, for the U.S.. For the world.

Please. Please.


On a completely different note, I was the guest writer on JLo's Zany Life + Crazy Faith blog today, in honor of Waiting For The Barbarians Day.

Seriously. You can't make this kind of stuff up. Go take a look!