... and there's the rub... the eve of what exactly?
No doubt the eve of a momentous series of events with the only semi-certainty that our world, in just a few hours, will shake, quake, rattle, and roll, as our southern neighbour chooses its fate for the coming four years.
A flood of adjectives comes to mind.
I remember when I was five. We lived in a duplex with radiators and a boiler fuelled by coal; there was a coal bin in the basement.
As I think of adjectives to describe the situation today, I am reminded, quite vividly, of standing in front of the coal bin as my dad shovelled coal into the hot glow of the boiler's open mouth.
Today is like that.
The many adjectives that come to mind are like the hundreds of lumps of black coal in the dim and dark bin. They're all negative; each as inadequate in describing the scene down south, as a single lump of coal in feeding the fire.
And yet I am not overcome with pessimism.
As I read the paper this morning, and as I gaze at the information flowing from my devices, I believe that enough people will do what I would do in a heartbeat when they wield a pencil to cast their choice for the coming years, motivated by reason, fairness, integrity, compassion, and hope.
We'll see.
{48 hours later}
I see that I was wrong. There were not enough people. I'll leave it there, look away, turn my back and hope for the best.
