07 May 2008
Earthquake
The Times helpfully reminded me this morning that it is the anniversary of the end of the fighting in Europe long ago, and the beginning of the long reconstruction. That is worth a note in the rhythm of the changing seasons. The echoes of that are rumbling still, but there was something remarkable that happened at 1:35 PM yesterday, near the heart of Koreatown in Fairfax County’s Annandale neighborhood.
It was an earthquake. Granted, it was only 1.8 on the Richter Scale, and hence undetectable by most of us racing around here, but it suffices to remind us that no land is really firm, and all things, even those monuments with adamant foundations, are built on shifting sands.
They were voting down in North Carolina when the quake hit, and out west in Indiana. No one was injured in the quake, but that was not true about the candidates. It seems that Senator Clinton is either vanquished for sure, or newly energized by a narrow win in the Hoosier State, whose motto is “Crossroads of America.”
It is accurate. The people are real, and friendly, and you either have to drive through it, or fly over it to get anywhere interesting.
I stayed up too late, watching the returns. Senator Obama made a statesman-like address about North Carolina, which based on the time zone, trumped the later announcement when the closer contest in Indiana was resolved.
I fell asleep to vivid dreams. Maybe it was the earthquake, which I sensed but could not articulate, and maybe it was the election. The first adventure in REM-land was easy enough to explain; it was an exhausting version of the running dream, with which I will not burden the busy reader. If the aliens represented lawyers, or the fall of the West, that is close enough for government work.
Then a break. Painfully alert with dream0induced adrenaline, I padded back to the kitchen for water to slake my thirst. Recumbent once more, I willed myself into stillness. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. This night I was rewarded with reentry into the dreamscape.
This world had more human scale. The youthful former President was in it, and so was Hillary. I found myself participating in what seemed to be a last ditch campaign effort with remarkable fidelity. There were correspondents and pundits, and earnest ideologues. I followed along as the Candidate and the former President talked to small groups of special interests. One group was at the ski club where we grew up- Otsego is the name of the place, if you know Northern Michigan.
Northern Michigan would not be counted in the election, any more than the rest of the state, although they went for Hillary, and Barak was not on the ballot. We found ourselves in one of the rustic chalets on the property, and the Candidate was...well, how else can I put it? I was attracted to her on a human level.
She seemed to respond in kind. Bill was a good sport, hale-fellow-well-met and all that, and I believed that a real intimacy might result in one of those frank dream ways. Things were getting most interesting when another campaign event intruded, people coming into the Chalet, and we were off for a lightly attended function at a store-front church.
A man slept in one of the front pews, homeless perhaps. Hillary tried gamely to engage the small aggregation. I was contemplating my next move with the suddenly compelling candidate when the Secret Service intervened, demanding I produce a photo ID.
I could not, despite the heap of trash that emerged from my billfold. My desperation built; I needed to be close again to Hillary, and that is where I stood when the music program on my clock radio ran out the clock on dreamland.
Rising this morning, I discovered the thinness of her victory in the Hoosier State, and the thumping she took in North Carolina. It is over again, so they tell me, with the uncommitted Super Delegates to determine the victor.
They have counted her out before, but now the moment of truth is at hand. The pundits say a concession is in order, but I think that would take an earthquake much more profound than the one that shook the city yesterday.
I think I may walk across the alley and ask some of the Secret Service guys at the Clinton Headquarters what they heard in the black limousines clustered there late in the afternoon, when the quake was over.
I think she will fight on, though I do not know anyone who thinks the Surer Delegates are going to take the nomination away from the man of the people. It is a bit sad, really.
She is a fiercely determined woman from what I could see in her eyes last night.
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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