Two Devils Went Down to Georgia

We are always looking for souls to steal, and it seems we might have found one. A girl contacted skip via Couchsurfing and asked him if she could join him on his walk across the country. We don’t know much about her other than her name, C. (for now), and that she is 20 years old and from Westport, Connecticut. I’m not going to lie, I have more than a few reservations about the possibility of this addition, and they all stem from me being an elitist. However, for the sake of a good story, I’m willing to stay at the table while the dice roll a little longer.

I realize it has been a week or more since my last entry. The world has changed considerably since then, not just for me, for everyone. I woke up yesterday feeling inspired again. My vote—okay, I never got my absentee ballot in, but my state was way blue. If I had been in a swing state, I would have worked harder to get that paperwork in; nonetheless, my candidate one. But my vote, like so many others, was based on wanting a change. I’ve been keeping in my pocket the paper tab of a Celestial Seasons teabag for some time now; on it reads one of Gandhi’s most famous quotes, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of the United States now. I don’t believe that now that we have elected a black President for the first time in … forever, it necessarily follows that butterflies with erupt from lotuses and puppies will dance on rainbows all across the U.S., as I’ve heard in the rhetoric of so many people these past two days. Am I happy that Barack Obama is our president-elect? I am elated. That does not absolve the fact that the U.S. is still in a world of shit.

In my immediate family there are no clear politicians. We have some interesting dynamics—what family doesn’t? —but in mine politics and religion were never firmly discussed or practiced. (Side note: I, nor my sisters, never got “The Talk” from my parents either. The consequences of that decision could fill, if there had been such a public medium, another daily blog dating back to the mid-90’s or before.) My dad took us to the church with the better softball team, and when it came to politics, my father is a registered Republican, my mother a registered Democrat, and that’s all we knew of that. I was so grossly misinformed when I turned 18 that I originally registered as a Republican also, because it held a better aural ring. (I am now registered as an Independent. Shocker, I’m sure.) And, while I love discussing religion and my religious views, I am still not as informed as I probably should be about politics. Thanks to adamant and passionate professors in college, I feel I am more informed than the average voter, but I still don’t know how the Electoral College works.

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I was only a few miles into Georgia yesterday when I saw a cow with two tails. I drove another tenth of a mile before I realized, Holy shit! Did that cow just give birth? I hopped out of the car and sure enough, not 30 feet from me, a newborn calf lay, black and steaming, in the tall grass. It looked in my direction, sensing something, but its eyes were still too new to open under the sun. Still, it kept its face to me. I would like to believe that when it breathed, vapor rising from a wet nose, it breathed hope.