Feel it move?

The universe.  The world.  Whatever existence we’re smack in the middle of.  It’s shifting.

Feel it?

It starts with the change of seasons.  One day it’s hot and muggy.  The tomato plants out back lilt under the oppressive heat.  Their fruit cracks open with over-ripeness.  Lightening streaks through the horizon after dark.  Bats (no lie here, folks, eight of the little devils came to visit us this season) lose their way and flap their way through my house, careening into walls and windows – everywhere but the open door.

The next day the wind blusters through the parking lot.  I drive to work and am momentarily confused at the sight of slight tints of orange in the trees.  The light – it’s different. Slanted.  Cold.  The moon is low and bright.  The lady next door puts a scarecrow out front and frames her door with orange lights.

Every day I go to work.  One day’s the same as the next.  I upload my patients’ charts, and catch up on troubles from the night before.  I finish yesterday’s notes, return phone calls.  I round on my patients, and in between times, meet with grieving families.  I speak with the dying, ask them about their pain and if they are afraid, and lay what I hope is a healing hand on their shoulder.  (Healing.  No, I don’t heal them back from death.  I hope to help them heal from this life, so they pass easier into the next.)

The last two weeks, though.  I can’t connect anymore.  It’s like I hear myself talk, but I might as well be selling vacuums or lipstick.  I’m not on the same level as my patients, or their families.  I recognize the signs.  I’m deep into self-preservation mode.  Feel the shift.

Tempers flare.  Gas prices rise.  For Sale signs clutter an old neighborhood.

The Democrats host a fantastic convention.  I feel hope for the first time in (literally) years.  Someone is speaking my language.  Someone has been listening!  There is kindness and compassion in the world.

The hurricane comes, and then the Republicans get their turn.  I watch in casual disregard; nothing interesting here.  Until.

The trump card is pulled.

And welcome to the world, Sarah Palin.  Woah, folks.  Better hold on tight.  We’re in for a ride now!

Who, besides, me, is old enough to remember the old Herbal Essences commercial from the ’70’s?  You know the one.  Pretty woman in a suit struts towards the camera, liberated by shampoo.  She shakes out her hair from a bun and yanks off her librarian glasses.  That’s the first time I saw Sarah Palin.

Yep.  It’s her.  The shampoo lady is at the podium.

All I can say is I’m afraid.  I’m very afraid.  The term “political refugee” is starting to sound normal, like a term I might someday have to use for myself.  The world is spinning out of control.

In what parallel universe does a grown man with (self-reported) integrity choose someone like Sarah Palin for a vice-Presidential running mate?  How will this person help me?  What has she said in the days since the announcement have offered me any hope?

Here we are.  Days later, and still we’re shifting.  Sarah’s face is trumpeted all over the popular media.

Oh, how she scares me.

Sarah Palin advocates a pro-life agenda. She has the right to choose what she believes in.

However, she does not have the right to smash her beliefs down my throat, or my daughter’s. Sarah Palin does not have the right to put my life at risk, and she most certainly does not have the right to put my sweet daughter’s life at risk, either.

What the pro-life folks forget is this. Women have always chosen. They chose well before Roe vs. Wade was decided, and they will continue to choose if it is overturned.

The difference is, women will have to become criminals to choose. They’ll have to put their own lives at serious risk to choose. (Is anyone out there old enough to remember an aunt, or maybe a friend, who became seriously ill, or even died, after an illegal abortion?)

This is what Sarah Palin and others are advocating for. They won’t be saving lives. They’ll be destroying even more of them.

Listen. I don’t like abortion, either. I can’t imagine anyone does. I worked for quite some time at Planned Parenthood, and never, ever, spent a night in the surgical clinic without grieving for the babies who’d never get to live.

But the alternative is worse. I made my peace with abortion a long time ago. People like Sarah Palin, and the folks who are pulling her strings, frighten me very much.

I can’t even begin to speak about the alleged censorship (pretty much a done deal, according to the New York Times), or the alleged abuses of power in Alaska (ditto to the Times).

How can fellow humans, fellow Americans, knowingly place their trust in this woman?  And her running mate (who, by the way, I had an iota of respect for, before this), since he clearly chose her for reasons that have nothing to do with “country first.”

Hold my hair while I vomit, would you?

Thanks.

Where’s my candidate in all this?  I understand that New York State is already as blue as blue can be, and Barack has no reason to spend a gazillion dollars campaigning up here.  But it would be nice to hear from him.  See him.  Get some reassurance that he’s not giving up on us.  We need him.

Someone has to help get the world on an even keel.  Someone has to reign in this madness.  He told me he would try.

I like to think the Democrats (all of them, even my friends, the Clintons) are composed and nonplussed, wherever they are.  They are waiting for the Republicans to finish slapping each other on the back, and waiting for Sarah to hang herself with her own rope.  Then they’ll be back, in full force.

To give me hope.

I’m headed to the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival this weekend.  Look for me.  I’ll be wearing this button.

(You can get yours, here.)