An answer

I'm at the front desk of the library on a quiet night where outside darkness long ago fell and a dry snow thickly dusted the city. An array of old guy regulars came up to the desk to shoot the breeze with me and we gamely struggled through the murk of trying to understand what each of us were trying to communicate and why we should consider any of what the other person said important. We all decided it's the effort that counts and soldiered on.

Just because it's quiet, almost dead here, doesn't mean there aren't at least a hundred people in this library as we count down our final hour. I don't think too many of the people visiting here are irritated about being in a library. A few are having a good time even.

Oh man, Socialism. Here's your little slice of Government, a library. I would not describe it as run particularly well, not well or brightly or with passion at all, but it works almost beautifully even despite that. It's not brain surgery. There's a lot of room for error and we use about half of it and rarely hit our heads.

I think that this is the worst political moment for my country that I have seen in my adult life. It is ugly and mad out there. In some ways everything in the world looks the same, but underneath it feels like there is some horror growing in the heart of America. Minds are inflamed. Every op ed I read seems to be desperately trying to work out the answer; grand, practical, and clinging to hope, but all scrabbling for an answer. I get pretty upset too.

But sitting here, as the day winds down, I think, what if we all just tried, for a change, as an answer, strange and calm as it may be to our minds, what if we tried... Library.