The Time Will Come up

The elections are next week, and I am in despair over the anticipated results. Like Dylan, “I need something strong to distract my mind.” Alas, there is nothing that palliative available. As so as I have done for the past forty five years, I will go to the polls and vote too often for those who will not be elected.

Today I feel myself a bit lost and I wander about the office picking up here a book and there a journal. I sit in one chair in front of the computer and my present writing project, and then I soon rise and move to another and settle at the work desk for study. I am not concentrating. I stay at neither very long. I sweep the floor again and polish the desks free of dust. Some dust remains. I read a few student papers and make comments I hope might be helpful now and in the future, but truthfully, I have my doubts. I check my email. And today I had to repair the handle on the storm door to my cabin office to prevent being locked in or out.

Sometimes I go into the house and fix a cup of tea, or nervously out of nerves grab a snack for which I am not really hungry. I wander to the television and turn it on, and survey the possibilities. I see that the subject of the Maury Povich show today is entitled “Sex Secrets revealed . . . Your boyfriend got me pregnant!” I wonder how a person can get out of bed in the morning knowing that this engagement is with what he is going to earn his bread today. I turn off the television and go back to my study. I feel much better.  And I understand the political winds of change a bit better. But one day there will be an hour when the ship comes in . . .