The election

Today is my 79th birthday. I'm getting old! But I don't feel old most of the time. In my head I'm between 55 and 60—sometimes even 40. And most days my body feels that way too. I don't dread growing old and I don't dread dying. But I would like to enjoy my life, and this year that's been hard. For all of us.

As I write they are still counting ballots from the 11/3 election. More people voted than ever before and many states were unprepared for the onslaught—especially mail-in votes which take additional time. Some states don't have automatic signature validating machines, as Oregon does, and that greatly slows the process. In Pennsylvania they've never done early voting or vote-by-mail. So it's slow, slow, slow. Sloth memes are popular on Twitter.

But Joe Biden is winning, and that makes this day especially happy. The president has already sued numerous times, to stop the count, or to keep counting; to move poll watchers closer (he won that one) and other baseless suits that get tossed for being "frivolous." That he is angry is obvious.

It's hard to tear myself away from the TV because there are four undecided states with narrow margins and the counts keep changing and I have to know, immediately, because the danger is so great.

How this will affect us in the coming days is impossible to predict. I can't even define how I feel at the moment. The sense of great relief I expected hasn't developed, but neither do I suffer that pit-in-the-stomach dread that affected me the morning of the 4th, when initial counting revealed Trump ahead in many states. I grow more content as each new batch of votes comes in and Biden's margins widen. But there's no ecstasy. No ebullient mood.

Biden urges patience during the counting and patience is what we're going to need over the next few months as the transition becomes reality. Patience has never been easy for me; waiting has never been easy. But if age has taught me anything it's that the only thing I can truly command is my own mind. Neither outside events, other's thoughts, nor the weather, are within my province. So I will do my best to wait patiently, knowing that whatever happens Gaia will turn and life will go on.