Whew! It’s been a busy time here in Manchester, New Hampshire! For about a week the streets have been taken over by media vehicles, candidates’ vehicles, the candidates and media folks themselves, and most of all, by people loudly urging others to vote for their candidate. It’s been something of a three-ring circus, which I watched (and, it has to be said, participated in) with some bemusement.
And then, on Wednesday, it all disappeared. Oh, a few trucks were still parked in hotel parking lots while their drivers got some much-needed rest. And candidate signs lay in the slop that used to be snow, but with recent high temperatures has become muddy slush. But Manchester returned to normal: the lights were turned off, the makeup removed, and life went on.
In the aftermath of all the excitement, one has to ask oneself what meaning one found in it all. I worked hard for a candidate who didn’t have a chance of winning, and in fact did not; so the aftermath was, for me, tinged with some disappointment, sort of an emotional hangover. But the true meaning was captured Monday afternoon when I met my friend Susan — a political photographer, so right in her element — for lunch at the Gala Café. Sitting next to us were two men who had come down from Canada in order to go door-to-door, to work for something positive, even though whatever happened here would only affect them indirectly and far in the future. They were here because they believed. They were here because they had hope.
And perhaps, at the end of the day, that’s what all this hoopla was about: hope. Opening one’s heart with change, to change, through change. I felt humbled: my own efforts were local, carefully scheduled so as not to upset my life and work; but they took time off from their lives, their work, to come and do this.
So maybe things will turn out better than we think, after all.
– Jeannette Cézanne
http://www.JeannetteCezanne.com
Posted by: Opening the heart — jcezanne
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