I woke up this morning with Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy is Coming” in my head. I am not at my best — really, I’m barely functional — first thing in the morning, so I didn’t think anything much of it. I checked my email from my laptop in bed because I am lazy, and then I got up and picked out my clothes and brushed my teeth and got in the shower, and it was only partway through my shower that I realized just what it was I was humming. From the wells of disappointment where the women kneel to pray / for the grace of God in the desert here / and the desert far away: / Democracy is coming to the USA… And I think I cried then, just a little bit, just for a minute before I turned the water off and got dressed and got ready for my day.

I want and need so badly, just this once, to be proven wrong in my cynicism. I want today to happen the way it should. I want everyone to vote and I want their votes to be counted fairly, whoever they vote for, and at the end of the day I want Kerry to win. Preferably in a landslide, but I’ll take what I can get.

We went to vote before going to work today. We found our new polling place and it was packed. There were people from MoveOn outside helping people who didn’t know what district they were from, and helping with any voting problems, and inside there were lines of people at each voting booth. Young people, lots of them. Maybe it’s just that this new precinct has different demographics than my old one, maybe young people always vote more here, but all I know is that this is the first time in several years that I haven’t been the only person under 50 when I go to vote. There were lots of senior citizens, but also college kids in dreadlocks, middle-aged men and women bringing their little kids with them to vote — everyone.

I want to believe that means something, that people care this time. I want all of this work and worry not to have been in vain. I want those little kids who were there today with their parents to have learned that voting still matters, that voices get heard, that sometimes the pieces come together and the right thing does happen. I want them to spend the next eight years growing up in a country that’s safer and saner than the one we’ve given them so far. I’m not a superstitious person, but I hope it meant something that I woke up with that particular song in my head. I hope democracy works the way it’s supposed to tonight.

I haven’t been able to write about any of this yet. It’s been such a miserable week. For political reasons, of course, for the things I wanted to believe were true about my fellow citizens that proved not to be, and the things I hoped would be proven false that weren’t. There were family reasons too, and personal ones, and just all sorts of reasons that I feel as if I’ve spent the last several days in a fog that only lifted for a few brief moments when the anger overwhelmed the depression.

But I got out of bed this morning at 6 a.m., and I put on my “pro-choice escort” shirt, and I went down to the clinic, and I spent the morning standing up and doing something good for a cause I believe in. This afternoon, I wrote letters to several politicians, thanking them or taking to task for things they’ve said in the last few days, asking them to fight harder than ever now for those of us whose voices went unheard this week. Tomorrow I’ll be at the needle exchange, where we may even have alcohol wipes and Band-Aids this week if the powers that be have decreed our clients deserve that much human compassion. And even if we don’t have half the things we need, I will be there doing the best I can with limited resources to care for the people no one else is caring for. Somewhere in all that I gave money to a few different organizations that are going to need it now more than ever, renewed my membership with the ACLU, and signed up for the mailing list of the local Democratic headquarters so that when the regrouping begins I can be a part of it. And I feel just the tiniest bit better now. Not much, but some.

Bit by bit, letter by letter, each day I volunteer my time and energy, I am going to make this cloud lift at least a little bit. The one I’m in and the one the country’s in. This is not what I hoped to be thinking about and talking about this weekend, but here it is, and I’ve had my few days to sulk. Now it’s time to fix things.

So much for my intention to write more in November, eh? I guess this is why I don’t even bother to make New Year’s resolutions. I’m so bad at keeping resolutions. I guess it’s just been kind of a rough month, and I haven’t felt up to writing about it. It’s been rough in a weird way, though. Nothing big and terrible has happened, other than an ankle sprain. Quite to the contrary, I’ve gotten some good work done, spent time with friends, tried on some new responsibilities at the needle exchange, played with other people’s puppies, picked out some good Christmas presents for people I love, turned up some interesting job prospects that I’m waiting to hear back about, and made plenty of time to read good books and cuddle with cats and have long silly conversations with Len. Someone I knew long ago got back in touch briefly to try to mend how badly things ended between us, and while nothing further will come of it, I think some old wounds were mended on both sides. And we even got new windows put into our house courtesy of the landlord, so suddenly my house is toasty warm instead of drafty, and has pretty new windows to boot.

It’s just that there’s been an undercurrent of sadness to all of it. I think part of me is still brooding about the election and continuing to be made sad and angry by more recent news. And part of it’s family stuff. People I love are undergoing hard choices and difficult growth, and I am far away and able to do so little to ease the growing pains. So things are going well for me, but underneath it all I’m just sad, and a little tired, most of the time. I can’t tell yet if this is the start of a minor depressive phase or just a natural response to some unhappy things going on around me. I guess it doesn’t matter which it is. Sooner or later it will get better, and in the meanwhile I will just keep on being good to myself and the people around me, and trying to make my little corner of the world better. (And maybe I’ll let my mother spoil me a little rotten while I’m visiting for Thanksgiving.)

A few minutes ago I was lying in a freshly-drawn bath, all surrounded by bubbles and steam, feeling all warm and relaxed, and it occurred to me that it was perhaps a slightly weird circumstance in which to be rereading Adrienne Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” just for fun, much as I like her writing. But then when I finished the essay, since the water was still pretty warm, I decided to stay in for a couple more minutes and shave my legs for a change, since I hadn’t bothered in several months. So goes the ongoing struggle between my feminism and my frivolity, I suppose. Fortunately I seem quite able to reconcile the two 99% of the time. I contain multitudes, and all that, though I suppose Whitman probably wasn’t talking about leg-shaving. (Unless everyone else knows something about him that I don’t.)

I thought when I sat down that perhaps I had more to say, having just come back from a visit to my parents’ that was both more and less difficult than I expected it to be, but Len is playing Grand Theft Auto in the other room and the sound of gunshots keeps distracting me. I might be best served to just post this and go make some hot chocolate.