Election Day

Today is election day for the old US of A, and, as you've probably heard, there's a certain amount of historic precedent about to be set, regardless of the outcome. Symbolically, North America will take another (long overdue, still smallish) step towards righting a long and embarrassing history of gender and racial discrimination. But that's pretty abstract, right? Because that's a symbolic change, it will probably affect your life very little, if at all, other than in terms of your understanding of history. And you don't live your life with this sense of historic perspective anywhere near most of the time, because, on top of being a poor conversationalist, you would have a difficult time, say, doing your laundry. And then these big things come up, election day sized events with far-reaching cultural implications, and it can be a little jarring to try to comprehend the importance of the moment while also washing your socks; your world will not be profoundly different on wednesday, specifically, except that this moment in history will have come and gone, and you'll be feeling either miserable and cynical or optimistic and excited, or, I suppose, stoically resigned, if you happen to dislike the two-party system. The actual changes, well, those are slow, and they take a lot of time and happen incrementally, even in the best cases. The cogs are very large, and very difficult to move, and they will outlive all of us, and that's what history is.
This song is a particularly beautiful story about that kind of jarring and abstract historical moment that intrudes on the laundry parts of our lives, and I advise you to listen to it, because I think it hints at what I'm trying to say with a great deal more elegance and subtlety than my heavy-handed rhetoric, and because it's a pretty piece of songwriting. I've been humming it to myself for a week or so, and thinking about the upcoming election, and how (other than the obvious and besides-the-point fact that they both concern the job of president) they relate. It will also give your day a bit of the ol' art and culture when you might otherwise forget that this is what we protect with all these complicated politics. This song is a few years old, but it's from a remarkable album that I wholeheartedly recommend. I hope tomorrow brings you some peace of mind, everyone, and you all get everything you want.

UPDATE:
After rereading this post, and judging it harshly (shallow analysis, still miraculously overwrought) I have learned one thing: I am behind in my laundry, and it is apparently affecting the quality of my work. We can fix this; we can make it right. Tuesday: laundry day.