JOIN THE IMPACT

E Pluribus Unum

The day broke with a palatable sense of renewal.  It had rained some time in the early morning before I woke up and everything was still wet.  But the sun was streaming though the trees and glinting off the droplets hanging from the leaf tips.  All the streets were clean and the air was clear.  Ludicrously, it actually felt like the world had been reborn. 

The polling lines were longer than I’ve ever seen them, winding from the outside lawn into the middle school theatre all the way down to the orchestra of the stage.  The sense of quiet, pent up anticipation rolled around the crowd like a roulette ball.  Throngs of fourth graders politely requested interviews with the voters and slowly scratched responses onto a single sheet of white paper with their # 2 pencils.  “Why is this election different from others?” “What issue do you care about most and why?”  Though obviously trying to hold back enthusiasm, voters’ answers came so furiously that had the students had 20 years experience taking shorthand they might have kept up.  The poor kids never had a chance.

One way or the other this day already feels monumental.  Will the state and the country choose to move boldly into the future forsaking archaic prejudices?  The future is so close it's like looking at the sun.  It could be tomorrow.  One more dawn.  Exhilarating as it is terrifying.  It’s humbling to be on the verge of such possibility.  We as people can be so small, but as a people we can be immense.  It’s incredible to think this could be the real thing.