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January 19, 2004

Just Showing Up

At 9:30pm Boston time, a little voice, husky with sleep, wakes me up.

"Mommy, I'm tired of sleeping."

I sit up and check the clock. He's been asleep for over three hours -- about as good a 'nap' as he's had in two years.

"Okay," I say. "You can read quietly in your bed." He pads away without a response. I think it was a better answer than he expected from me.

I wonder if any Iowa results are in and I turn the television on, volume muted. Dave stirs beside me.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. I just want to check the caucus results."

On CSPAN, a ponytailed man in Dubuque is tallying numbers in the closed captioning on the bottom of my screen.

"1220 FOR KERRY, WHICH TRANSLATES TO 5.8 DELEGATES. WE ROUND THAT UP -- IT SAYS HERE IN THE RULES -- TO SIX."

1220 for Kerry? I think to myself. What does that mean? Is that relatively good or relatively bad? The man keeps speaking and the subtitles don't quite match up with his lips.

"SO WE'VE ENDED UP WITH SIX DELEGATES FOR KERRY, 2.4 FOR EDWARDS AND 2.1 FOR DEAN."

"Did he just say 2.1? That can't be right," I think, remembering the masses of orange hats peppering the newscasts and blog pictures this week.

Dave climbs over me and heads for the kitchen.

"I need a drink. It's hot in here."

And it is. These old radiators suck all of the moisture out of the house at night. I turn the volume on, since Dave's awake anyway. The ponytailed man is in the midst of some arcane calculation that involves the number of Kerry supporters multiplied by the volume of a sphere, divided by the angle of the moon's declension. I'm suddenly angry at the entire state of Iowa. "Why is the process so complicated?" I huff toward the kitchen. "How is anyone supposed to understand it, let alone win it?"

Dave comes back into the bedroom, chugging a liter of seltzer. He offers me some, but I decline. I'm overheated and not quite ready to cool down yet.

"Look at this crap," I mutter. "They're sending in the votes and people are still coming in. People are still coming in!" I don't understand what I'm watching and neither does he. I flip channels and stop at every program with a news ticker across the bottom. Some well-coiffed chick is asking an old white guy, "How could this happen to Dean?" The old white guy is clearly gloating -- a closet Kerry supporter I suppose, "Well Lisa, it was all of the mistakes he made in the last week..." I talk over his next words.

"Mistakes... what mistakes!" I pick up a koosh ball from the night stand and fling it at the television. "Mistakes, my ass!" Dave laughs his sore-throaty laugh. He's loud enough that Trevor comes back into the bedroom and starts to snack on the pepperoni and cheese that Dave has brought in. Dean has conceded the Iowa caucus to Kerry, but in my house, all eyes are on me with an unasked question: Are we still going?

A midnight trip to New Hampshire is on the line. We're supposed to join the group that's meeting Howard Dean's plane as he arrives to kick off the NH caucus. Dave will go if I ask him to -- he knows it's important to me -- but he's clearly dreaming about an alternate future in which he gets to sleep through the night. I'm thinking about it too. This trip will cost us a lot. Not financially, although certainly gas and coffee money will be spent, but in terms of lost sleep, a groggy workday and a convoluted school schedule. It would be so easy to cancel the trip and get the family back on schedule.

Dave is wondering about my answer and I stall him. "I'm writing a post," I say. "I'll let you know when it's done." Average Joe comes on and the geeks buy me some time. Dave and Trevor don't know it yet, but we're still going to New Hampshire tonight, because you don't abandon your man when he's down. You don't let the guy arrive to a halfhearted welcome after a night like the one he's just had. You don't say, "I'm sorry, democracy, I have to work tomorrow. Too bad free speech, I'm a little tired tonight."

We're all going to be dragging on Tuesday, and some of us may have to take a half-day, but it's for a good phenomenal cause. I don't wield a weapon in the desert to defend democracy, I don't run for public office to protect liberty. I write to create the America I see in my mind. I write letters to caucus-goers in Iowa, I write notes to strangers in New Hampshire. I write encouraging emails to fellow supporters and I write emphatic letters to editors of local newspapers. I write little checks to Dean for America and I write exceedingly long posts on Liloia.com. And tonight, I'm going to work to make life better for my child, my family, and my country by just showing up. I hope to see you there.

Tara

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