Voting

I voted today, of course.

Jay woke me up early this morning. He was so excited. He wanted to be the first person at the polls. Dork.

"Wake up! We have to go vote!"

I started to get up. It was pitch black outside. The stars were shining, the hill and the pond sloping away. The sweet incense like smell of the leaves blowing in. It's very warm here. We had slept with the windows open. Then I looked at the clock. 4:30 am.

I don't love either Jay or Barack that much.

"It's 4:30 am."

"Oh, sorry."

We couldn't go back to sleep, so made love instead. Then fell asleep after.

At 6:18 sharp, I was awakened by the sound of gunfire. Lots of it.

"What's that?"

"Duck hunting season started. They have a precise time they can start shooting. First light. Changes every day."

Maybe a little grey yellow light was breaking over the hills. It almost looked imaginary. "It sounds like we're being attacked." The gunfire continued.

"Christ, how many of them are out there?"

Jay got up, made coffee. He's going to upstate New York today for 5 days, then to Alberta, Idaho, and some place else. He was going to go to Canada last week to film a duck hunting special for Bass Pro, but for some reason, the ducks blew it off. No ducks. Maybe they're getting organized--getting the word out.

Heck, if a black man can get himself elected of this country, it would not surprise me one bit if the ducks were getting wise to the hunters.

I'll miss Jay, but it's good that he's going, because I'm really behind on my classwork.

It's funny, but I haven't even thought about race during this campaign. I wonder if most people still do. I was reading a blog called "The Root" this morning--I'll post the link--and it framed this election in racial terms, which surprised me. "Yeah," I thought, "I guess they have a point." But I never thought one of the key things about Obama was his race. It was always considered impolite in my family to notice and comment on things like race and ethnicity--although my mother often did--comments utterly ignored by my grandmother and father. It fell into the same category as finances. Whether you were accepted or not ostensibly should depend on your charm and character, and not your background, race, or finances, good or bad.

Then I went to Dartmouth. And one of my housemates, Eileen Brown, said something to me that I'll remember the rest of my life. I had just made the idiotic comment that I didn't really notice whether people were white or black (I was nineteen, okay?). And she said, "If you're really my friend, you had better damn well notice I'm black. Because being black involves a lot of stuff that you'd better be mad about and worried about if you really are my friend."

I drove into town. I passed the Little Dixie county fire, the polling place by Jay's. Packed. Pick-up trucks pulled over on the side of the road a quarter mile down. I've never seen the polling places so crowded.

I vote at Unity church, which everyone who doesn't know me very well thinks I should attend. I like voting days, because I get to see all the funny little people who live in my just-hanging-on-by-our-bitten-fingernails-to-middle-class (whewww) neighborhood I have to wait in line to show my i.d. I think about being grumpy and complaining that this is unconstitutional, but the little old lady is so kind and excited as she checks my address, I can't muster up the meanness. She's wearing a lavender pantsuit, with embroidered violets on the lapels. A bent little Nigerian man with a name that takes up almost his entire nametag (his wife, equally bent is standing beside the ballot box in a bright head scarf) explains in great detail to me how I am to fill in the circles next to the candidates of my choice. They've changed pen brands for this election (thick, sharpie magic markers were used in the past), and the pens they've supplied us with have much thinner tips, so the poll workers are very anxious that we get this right. (Paloma never has problems with votes being messed up, let me tell you. The city of OCD.)

I complete my ballot. It does take longer with the new pens. Give it to the Nigerian lady.

"Sticker! You must have a sticker!" She calls after me, runs up, hands me an "I voted" sticker. "and you're taking the pen." So I am. I sheepishly hand it back to her. Then I walk outside the church. An older woman I don't know in sweeping scarves is walking towards me. "You look so beautiful!" she tells me, beaming. "What beautiful colors you're wearing." I hadn't noticed, but I guess they are--wine and amber and brown courdouroy tree of life skirt, green suede jacket, plum pashmina.

"thank you. Have a good day!"

"I am, oh, I am." she says, beaming.

A man is several feet behind her. "Good morning," he says, smiling.

"Good morning!" I reply.

"It's going to be a beautiful afternoon." He says. He stops on the walk. He is in his late 50's, neatly, cheaply dressed. Khakis, blue and white striped shirt. Hair needs a trim. I've never seen him before in my life "It's going to be a good day tomorrow, too, I think."

"I think." I say. "I hope."

"I hope."

We look at each other. He has tears in his eyes. I pat his hand. He nods, gives my hand a squeeze, and goes inside the church.

Oh, man. I hope.

That's my 1/2 hour.