Originally posted 11.04.2004
Wednesday morning, heading into the subway, I ducked my head to avoid seeing any strong headlines. Eyes read words, however, and the brain registers them. Funny the way language works. Absorbing that the election was as yet undecided didn’t make me feel any better. Intuitively, I knew how it would end.
A few hours later intuition was confirmed, and I sobbed at the desk where I’ll sit for the rest of the week, an insurance policy against any editorial brush fires that might flare up while the rest of my temporary co-workers man the marathon expo across town. I was grateful for the solitude—it wouldn’t do to cry in front of anyone who assigns me work. But when coach breezed in midday to check her email, she was upbeat, if frazzled. Sure, she clucked, it was a shame…but the first day is the best part of the expo, before it gets really crazy.
I’d called my father the night before. Election night. I needed to understand how someone with such a global view, with such depth of knowledge and sensitivity, could vote twice for a man who is so obviously dangerous, a threat to national well-being. He explained, in measured and optimistic tones, his support. But I couldn’t understand, either because it was too complex, or because I was too drunk. He assured me that everything would get better in the second term. That the economy would recover. That tax cuts would result in more jobs and bigger paychecks for people like me. That our foreign policy, that the Middle East…maybe he should send me his book.
At the end of the day, I went to the expo to pick up my race material. Nothing was different in New York. The trees in Central Park still stood, strangers on the bus avoided eye contact, the cross-town ride took forever. At the expo, a runner with a smaller number than mine butted in front of me to pick up her chip and goody bag, then apologized. She didn’t know I was waiting for help. She apologized again. I could’ve said something about how she was probably used to being in front of everyone else, but I didn’t.
It’s marathon week, and everyone who has anything to do with the race is obsessed with it. My periformis still hurts, I still like beer more than water, and the ground I stand on is still in one piece, despite the division of the nation and my own cognitive dissonance. As I read the dire predictions for the second term in the op-eds, I struggle for faith and understanding. I will not be moving to Canada; our country is sick and it needs us.
