The Midterms

While much of this blog is about running, about races and hikes, about the tangible world in which we rejoice in strength and breath and vision, a larger world impacts us all.  The election of a truly odious man to the Presidency in 2016 has been much on our minds for the past two years, growing worse by the day.  We are the laughingstock of the world and hard-won diplomatic relationships are in tatters.  The rich grow richer, the poor grow poorer, and "conservative" Republicans have run up huge deficits and tariffs.  Climate change is a reality, not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.  The Free Press is not the enemy of the people.  It is truly distressing to watch our government fall farther and farther each day.

So on the eve of the midterm elections on Tuesday I wrote this on the little blackboard in our kitchen where we take turns posting thoughts throughout the year.

We stayed up late but did not know the encouraging results until this morning.  It was not a perfect result, but in the end I think I am an optimist, and I am glad that enough of our fellow citizens went to the polls and (as I like to think) said, "Enough of this insanity!  Let's get back to normal again!"  I am thinking that normal would mean having a President who can speak in coherent sentences and act like an adult instead of playing golf and watching TV and paying off porn stars; who has the interests of the country uppermost in mind instead of that of his own squalid, lurid, casino-hotel empire.  Normal would mean getting to work solving real problems.  Normal would mean healing the divisions between us.  Normal might even mean waking up in the morning not worrying about what crazy tweet went out at 3:00 a.m.

So we made a step in the right direction, I think.  And this Highlands Roadrunner ran three miles this morning giving thanks that there are still good people in  the world making good decisions.