Dark Days Ahead

It is election season... still. Things aren't looking good for the energetic, progressive sweep of two years ago. We are a people easily disillusioned, easily swayed. The opinions of the great masses can't stand up to the realization that recovery of such magnitude takes decades, not moments- regardless of who is in charge. There are no magic bullet, just hard work in our future. It just promises to take longer and be more unpleasant when the ones that have taken no responsibility for the mess (for which every one is responsible) have shluffed it off on someone else, wiped their hands on expensive sets of slack and gone about the business of distracting this country into a tizzy. Depressing, but a good reason to read.

Both my mom and I, who share more personality traits than either of us likes to admit, love falling into a good book. Good is a relative term of course. Momma wouldn't know a great novel if it hit her on the head and I try to avoid them unless I want people to see me reading them. We like a book that gets you invested, messes with your sleep, sucks you in and takes over your life. We like those books that gain control over good sense... the ones that make you pick the longest line in the grocery store, so you can steal a few pages while waiting. Sometimes (not often), we agree on these books and talk about the characters as if they are real people at the dinner table, while my sister rolls her eyes and my niece asks questions about fictitious apparitions of the mind like they are cousins she might one day meet.

Fall is already promising a long, dark winter. We have both been relatively unsuccessful in finding "good" books as of late and are depressed by it, constantly asking the other what they have dug up. I want to get lost, stumble around in somebody else's mind for a while. It really is the ultimate form of voyeurism... to plop down in the middle of someone's life, learn their secrets and their fears without having to reveal your own. And then somehow, inexplicably, you tie your worries to them, wonder where they are now, what has happened to them. It is a wonderful trick these writers have. I'm not talking about the F. Scotts and Faulkners of the world, the proud historians of American life, but the trashrag authors in the trenches filling pages with... well, trash, commonness... but have this ability to create worlds that transcend that line between real and make believe. It is a rare gift to create something from nothing.

I look forward to finding it again. I know I will soon. I'll let you know when I do.