Archive Listing

The first results are coming in, and so far they are no surprise. The real excitement of the night comes later, when battleground states come down to the wire. But, as I sit here watching votes stream in (including, for the first time, my own), I find myself pondering my life in terms of Presidential terms.

Searching for a song fitting for the father-daughter dance at my wedding has made me ponder my relationship with my father quite a bit over the last several weeks. I’ve come to realize how much of our bond is unspoken and difficult to describe. In many ways, it is stunted and as it was when I was twelve and our family was going through some rough times. The lines of communication are more difficult than they are with my mother, who is, in many ways, a real friend.

The beginning of spring and the end of summer in Washington always manage to remind me of my childhood in Florida. Something about the lighting, the pattern of sun and rain, some indescribable feeling of the months of May and August always seem to make me nostalgic for the backdrop of the first eight years of my life. Most of the time you’ll hear me say that the only thing I miss about Florida is the thunderstorms. But that’s not true. I miss the road trips. I miss the lazy heat-bathed days. I miss pre-hurricane season when I would prepare my closet to be a hurricane shelter and invariably make my mom mad months later when I had forgotten about it and cockroaches began to swarm.