Hillary and Bill Clinton at Yale circa 1972
I love this picture of Hillary and Bill. They look like people I could have been friends with. They give me hope.
I've been having lots of conversations on both sides of aisle about the election next year: Republicans who are sure Trump is the candidate think therefore Hillary has it in the bag; those who think Hillary can never win because of all the fudging and missteps, can't be trusted; those who think a Republican or Democratic dark horse is going to materialize; those, like myself, who threatened to move out of the country if Bush 2 was elected, and then didn't, and are now who are saying they will do same if DT candidacy really turns out to be viable.
Nobody is happy.
But this photograph made me very happy. I love Hillary's tinted wire frames, her stylish boots, her navy raincoat over what looks to be jeans. I love her big smile and her long straight hair parted in the middle. I love Bill's scruffy all beige-and-brown look, his boots, his cords, the cord (or suede jacket), his cable brown turtleneck, his big law book and notebook under his arm. I love his hand on her shoulder in the middle of a grayish New Haven day. I know they are in law school together, that they got into Yale without pull, and most of all, I love that they know the world is their oyster and anything is possible.
We all have gone through lots since those days, but I think if Hillary can get a little of her '70s groove on, her idealism instead of her cynicism, her smartest-girl-in-the-class-first-to-raise-her-hand thing, her unadorned smile that has not suffered the slings-and-arrows, lose the chip, lose the brittle, we will meet her halfway with our own, less hope-less selves.
Obviously, nobody is a shoe-in. I keep asking: if you could have anyone for president who would you choose? And nobody is able to give me a good answer, they can only tell me why not.
I want to be hopeful going into the New Year. Lord knows, we have plenty to bring us down. My friends in LA who thought it wasn't safe to go to NY had a rude awakening from San Bernardino. My friends in NY said you shouldn't go to Western Europe now. I mean come on, the whole of Western Europe? My friends in Paris are simply hunkering down as they know that the whole thing is a crap shoot anyway.
We can't all go somewhere else. There really is no place safe from lunatics of any stripe. We can't fantasize about who is not running, the perfect candidate. We have to just deal with what we have, highly imperfect perhaps, but still filled with wonderful attributes.
Let's not be NIMBY about the election as well as low-income housing and halfway houses. Let's be In My Back Yard. Let's believe. Tinkerbell, do you hear me?