She

The third person - the ultimate in escapism. She, not I, not you - she the dispassionate, the self-differentiated, the other that I don't have to completely recognize as myself.

She had a couple of beers tonight and the conversation inevitably turned to politics. It is what they all do, so it's natural. Work blends into life blends back into work as they nibble at the snacks and pretend to say farewell to another of their own - one of the temporary blips on the map that she is beginning to hope to become.

A little tipsy, a little more free, she feels the edge rising up within her; that one point she desperately wants to cross - the proverbial line in the sand that might mean that she actually stood for something, believed in something - a something that's always out there, beyond her and has profoundly more meaning than anything she can see herself doing.

But, what was the conversation? The now old joke about TANF - that one had to have been in DC for at least 3 years to tell - an insider's joke with the inside-the-beltway wryness of old hands at 4 or 5 years. The joke is always easier to swallow than the reality - the lives that none of them know all that well. And she tries out her line again, "I think there should be a law, that anyone running for public office should have to spending a least a couple of weeks in the shoes of someone on some form of public assistance." But, there was quite a good comeback this time around, "How would that be any different from what so many of them already do with all the corporate welfare?" Ah, point taken! How indeed, but the larger point being how much we have all lost touch a little bit with what it is like to struggle. She returns briefly to the self-loathing bred by her own privelege as she wonders whether or not she should go to the gym after the party.

Oh, if she could just decide whether she was a sinner or a saint and get on with the rest of life. At least she does know that she isn't a Republican - life just has to be more than a set of talking points and supply side economics never made much sense.

One thing - one thing is all she needs. One thing to be passionate about, though some might argue that she doesn't really need more passion. But her mind won't settle; it gets restless - there's always more, more...MORE, damn it! And those single issue voters can get a little scary.

But it's only what's left of the alcohol talking now - maybe the politicians should drink a little more - at least what they said then would be a little more honest. She wonders what she would have to compromise to get elected, but then, her skin isn't thick enough for the campaign trail anyway. Maybe she would be a good speech writer - on the days she remembers that she is actually a decent writer, that is.

But the politics, the politics. It's almost the August lull and the summer lethargy is beginning lift in a last minute flurry of activity of buying votes to squeek through trade pacts and posturing over a gun liability bill that ends up protecting no one. Could we reread the second amendment, please? She has never understood how owning a gun became an inalienable right, but she just stores that thought away with so many of the others from the Republican playbook. Yeah, she's a little hostile toward the GOP, but the Southern Baptist mixing of religion and politics has left her a little scarred and more than a little cynical.

And then, the party dispersed and one face will be more or less gone, leaving others to carry on fighting the good fight, which these days is simply trying to keep a head above all the red ink because true progress is anathema to the powers that be. Neo-colonialism, neo-liberalism, neo-cons....it's all a guise for radical regression to a world that never existed and thus never can. Not that she claims too strong ties to reality, but there are much better dreams to dream.

With the beer almost gone, she decides that sleep may not be such a bad option - after all, she can dream some more dreams to punish herself with tomorrow, but hoping still for one she can grab on to - one big enough to pull her out of where she is now - the biggest and best dream she would dare dream, if only she didn't have to wake up so often.

I wish I had a river

I would fall into these words
and be washed away
by the meaning they now give
to the boats I've cast away
I wish I had a river
to sail away on

But then I drown in the thoughts
of the dreams that are cast
far too deep for the anchor
of the boats that now pass
I wish I had a river
to sail away on

So I drift between the banks
of these words and what would be
the only boat to bear me now
is the silence that I keep
I wish I had a river
to sail away on