United We Vote and Slump: Clinton or Trump
November 1, 2016
We are a week away from the closing of this 2016 Presidential election cycle in America. If there is one thing that we can all agree on despite of our political party inclinations, age, perception of race, gender and sexual orientation—it’s that we are exhausted.
The Race
There are other contenders for the presidency but that’s not really a serious thought. Our choices are simple and ardently depressing as they can’t seem to cancel each other out effectively to help us avoid the inevitable. Either former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton or Mr. Donald J. Trump must win this election.
My Myopic View
Personally I lead a very busy life that includes perhaps 5 hours to myself per week to ingest information through the reading of newspapers, magazines or just listening to other folks who get to make a living off of speaking their mind with make-up, sharp clothing and bright cable news cameras rolling.
What I see are two major party candidates that have started to sound very much alike and both have such a speckled past that if we wrote a sitcom on them there would be more seasons of material than Cheers, Friends and Seinfeld combined.
It’s belittling at this point to read columnists or listens to news pundits that claim that we the American people are at such odds with ourselves that we’re “hating” on our neighbors and strangers like. Of course I acknowledge that there will always be a subset of people who are unfortunately close-minded and try to strike out at others who won’t think the way they do.
Despite the incessant news cycle, the drunken-like tweet feeds and the stats-on-crack polls I believe that our nation is much more united in philosophy than we’ve been allowed to recognize.
Embedded Florida Early-Voting
As an unapologetic native Floridian I’ve enjoyed deep belly laughs listening to reporters over the years try to figure our state out especially during election season. We started voting last Monday and when I found out from a Facebook colleague I headed over to our local library that very afternoon.
Parents or guardians of young children can feel like an embedded journalist does when present in an active military theatre. I wanted to cut and run countless times, especially when my own 1-year-old started to fling her body onto the cement sidewalk and proceeded to roll for the curb. Visions of the hooded electoral college flooded my mind with doubts as to whether my vote mattered at all in the end.
Making it into the voting room itself finally felt like the sweet victory of your high school homecoming game until one of the volunteers looked at my driver’s liscense and then back at me as if I was an underaged kid trying to buy wine coolers—it struck me later that I judged the poor lady too harshly, I actually looked pretty war-torn and not a bit like the polished, pre-mother of three chick on that ID photo she was trying to compare with the stressed out bag and baby carrier mama in front of her.
The hour spent waiting for the chance to connect an incomplete arrow pointing to my respective voting choices gave me some time to work the public relations front with my fellow dutiful citizens around me. As I made the rounds of apologies, utterances of thanks and friendly exchanges with some of the sympathetic parents/grandparents around us I was able to get an idea of why there were so many people there on the very first day of early voting.
“I just want to be done with it.” “I don’t want to deal with this on THE day.” “ I want to get it out-of-the-way.” “I’m over this election already, just putting in my two cents and finish.” “It’s just the right thing to do.” And my personal favorite, “Stay in line that way you don’t have to try to do this another day.” (directed at me by the sweet soul waiting behind me and letting me know with another lady that my child lost her pacifier in a thicket of bushes next to us)
Character? Please. Next Issue.
Another united moment for us has to be this “character” analysis of Clinton and Trump respectively. Since this is my blog short I reserve the right to pose the idea that perhaps both of them have flaws and less than savory precedents for what Americans seem to have the appetite for in a president. We unanimously seem to dislike these choices before us and yet we’re still voting like it’s the rent or mortgage payment that we must abide by.
Future: Our Children and Grandchildren Have Gotten a Whiff
We’re united in understanding that our social structure as a whole has changed in the light of the rapid/non-stop information digital age. The younger generations among us are united in not understanding how we operated in prior decades without Snapchat, emojis, Facebook public journaling, computers in the guise of a telephone and the list goes on about technologies and softwares that I admittedly have no idea about.
We must move forward no matter what the result of this presidential cycle. Is it possible for us to learn from our prior mistakes in the past couple decades of trashing the incoming POTUS and his/her administration? Can we try to look at our own lives in our own cities and towns and see how much or little we can be involved in the political process even if it’s just volunteering on a subcommittee for your local town council? When will the “They” become “Us” in regard to our governing process in our nation whether it’s at the local, state or national level? Can the wrongs that will inevitably occur become ours to collectively own up to and then pick up together and move forward with better ideas learned?
Vote, Pray and Love.
I encourage everyone that is alive and of legal age to go ahead and vote. Pray for our country, think good thoughts for our nation if you don’t know/believe that something or Someone put our little planet in motion in an ocean of organized chaos. In the end, please have a little love for whomever or whatever political party “wins”. We are all Americans and we will survive what 2016 has brought us and this presidential election cycle will be a historic one full of many lessons for years to come.
R.V.S.B.
The Dance of Differences
Seashell Philosophy by She: Volume 7 in a Series
Note: Been a while since I’ve written one of these because it takes getting a break by the seashore to get the inspiration for these pieces. Rare.
Summer 2018 Setting
The summertime weather here in south Florida is intense because we get the double whammy of high temperatures coupled with high humidity that can envelope us like a heavy wool coat but the difference being that it’s wet and nonstop with its intensity.
As I’ve been a mother for over a decade now, I’ve found that our best chance for survival outdoors when in town here is to head for the coast immediately after the sun rises to enjoy the ocean before the sand becomes lava-hot and the eventual afternoon thunderstorm squalls move in.
The Tide Retreating
When I arrived at the shoreline a couple days ago, my children found that the high tide had already crested and so the ocean would start its gradual retreat as we sojourned over the next few hours at the shoreline.
What’s exciting about this reversal of water flow is that one can get a glimpse of the shells, rocks and other small trinkets that the sea can give up any given day. There’s a thrill in watching the water retreat every few seconds while also yielding a new batch of goodies–the trick is to strike and pick up what you see and like before the next breaking wave takes it away.
Nature Reflecting Us
During a time in our nation when any given media outlet online or print is exposing all the negative shades of our current social or political status, it’s liberating to stand between the barrier of land and water and to feel the force of the inevitable coupled with the unexpected. “The unexpected” being anything and everything that our offshore Gulf Stream can depose on the receding shoreline. “The inevitable” being the waves, propelled by the currents, ushered by the moon tidal forces and so forth.
Here’s the good news: we’re all so different. There is no “black” and “white”. It turns out that there are countless textures, shapes, colors and differing weights to the shells and rocks I sifted through my fingers as the waves broke against my legs with my feet sinking into the shifting sand at the magical barrier where land and sea overlap. How comforting when nature reflects the truth about who we are: an amazing array of physical people with unique personalities!
What Is Our Place?
As I selected a variety of empty shells, sea glass and bits of rock I felt a rush of anger at the idea that our nation could ever fall into the trap of writing off sections of people based on their looks, pasts or perceived biases. Don’t we realize that what makes our world so beautiful are the differences that we all represent?
When we really take in the nature around us on Earth, it’s devastating to recognize how we’ve collectively cheated ourselves into thinking that we as humans are so caustic as to write off entire cultures, nations or people in general based on the color of our skin or our socio-economic backgrounds. What gives?
The Sorting of the Truth
Every time that I return from the Atlantic Ocean shore with a pocket or bag full of shells, rocks and other artifacts I immediately put the finds into a bucket full of water at home and have fun sorting them with my children—even alone if the kids aren’t interested.
Here’s what I’ve found over the decades of practicing this ritual: every fiber of my being senses that nature mimics life incarnate and so all these splendid varieties of physical representations of what has trespassed our ocean system soothes my frazzled nerves. The truth is that we all have more in common with each other than we realize despite our differences.
Go Out: Pick Up Some Rocks or Shells!
As dull as it may seem to some folks, would encourage anyone who lives by a body of water (even lakes and streams) to enjoy the simplicity found in picking up natural deposits like rocks, driftwood, shells and countless other things yielded by these various bodies of water.
It’s a therapeutic exercise in harvesting what’s available and plentiful but it’s also a great lesson in recognizing individuality. There’s an amazing diversity out there in our geology and yet it’s a strong reminder of how we as people are full of different facets and hues—just like the handful of granite and quartz pieces I was able to retrieve from the Atlantic earlier this week.
R.V.S.B.