"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.... We must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost ..."  

-- Thomas Jefferson, June 4, 1798, after passage of the Alien and Sedition Act .

Four days after the election in 2004 my friend Nancy told me she was alarmed about another friend who was “losing it.”  “She just spent 3 days gathering leaves – hundreds of them. Now she’s coating them in paraffin, one by one, for an arrangement for the dining table. She even went out and bought a pan just for the paraffin – a cheap one she can throw away after it’s used.”  

I understood she was dismayed to see an old friend uncharacteristically transform into Martha Stewart.  But my own reaction was “What a great idea.” I didn’t think the paraffin and table arrangement idea was great, actually. The election had left me with a desperate need for distraction – but not enough to lead to delusions about my own short attention span and lack of interest in crafts.

Still, the thought of spending days tramping around the neighborhood gathering leaves in a cardboard box – even if only so they could become a forgotten, soggy mess on the back porch – suddenly seemed very soothing. 

And the only thing I want more than soothing after that election was escape. 

I was reminded of something a friend, an ex-Green Beret and paratrooper who saw dangerous action in the jungles of Central America in the 1960s, once told me; that he always immediately fell into deep sleep in the plane on the way to a mission. It was a form of psychic self-protection that I suddenly understood in a new way.

Like my friend in the face of those long ago dangers, it wasn’t escape from what we were headed toward (in terms of the election; it's dire, inevitable consequences)  that I wanted, because there was none. What I wanted was escape from my dread. 

One day before another election, the signs are hopeful that we may, as Jefferson predicted in his time, see “our luck turn” and gain an “opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost.” 

But as exciting and hopeful as that possibility is, it strikes me that this is a good time to remember that the principles we've lost won't be won back easily.

Like the soldier who slept through his dread only to face the terrible battle, the day after tomorrow, whatever the outcome, we won’t be waking up to a changed world – we'll only be landing at the beginning of very fierce fight to make it one.