1.

The sun sets in New England at around 3:30 PM in the winter. It is depressing. Lonely. You come to anticipate the early setting of the sun with angst. Each year, you get sad, pouty even, as you leave work on the first day that you realize you were, literally, at work from sun-up to sun-down. The sadness grows as you realize you only worked for nine hours. Even though you know it's coming, even though you are physically immersed in your memories of the year before (loud sighs, stomach aches), even though everyone else feels the same way, you still dread it. November slides away, and December drops like an anvil. It hurts. Every year. And this is what makes the dread so severe. Full understanding of what's to come always makes the dread worse.

2.

When I used to see George Bush speak, I had that same angst. This feeling set in early in his presidency, perhaps before September 11 even. Every time he stepped to the podium, I knew what was coming. I knew that he would pronounce something wrong, offend my politically correct sensibilities, or isolate a former ally with his insensitivity. And every time, he'd drop an anvil. I knew it was coming. Soon, I had to stop watching or listening to him altogether. I couldn't even watch people make fun of him. “He's just not funny,” I'd say. I knew how bad it was from the beginning. The dread set in.

George Bush came to represent my personal failures. I don't mean that he represented our failures as a nation, though maybe he did. I don't mean that he represented our inabilities as a people to intellectually evolve our political processes, but maybe he did that, too. What I mean is that he represents everything I work against each day. I am a teacher.

To be sure, I am not speaking out against George Bush's intellectual failings. I don't think he is capable of the types of higher-order thinking a good leader must embody. This doesn't make me hate him. It makes me feel sorry for him. I don't look on my students who struggle with identifying themes or struggle with judgments of canonical literary figures with disgust. I scaffold their visions. I help them articulate what they can't on their own. I help them piece together their lower-order, concrete thoughts with bits of new information and skills until they can articulate more abstract concepts. Many times, I thought that what would help George Bush was just some simple scaffolding. However, what George Bush got, as I understand it, was instructions.

George Bush thought like a member of a mob, made decision based on directives, rarely asked questions, and was complacent with not knowing.

The thought that I could be contributing to creating a person of such group-think mentality, of such un-originality, of such conservative values, of such myopia, of such compliance with the status-quo, makes my stomach drop. Could I be teaching students who could one day grow up to be such a president? Doing so would mean a personal failure. Ouch. It makes my stomach ache to think about, and I sigh audibly, loudly. Winter.

3.

Sometime around March (in a good year) the sun stays out late. This will be the first day you sigh with a smile since November. You'll breathe in deep and realize that you can walk the dog AFTER work. Your depression will lift and suddenly you'll start losing weight. It happens all across the region. The thinning of New England. This time of the year is not your favorite, but you appreciate it tremendously in contrast. You won't feel nervous. You won't dread nighttime. You'll realize you wouldn't notice the extra hour of light had it not been taken from you for so long. You'll be thankful. Your life is returning to stasis. A balance returns. You won't be happy forever, but you do feel like you've begun a journey towards infinite possibility. The lightness in the evening brings hope back into your life.

4.

Barack Obama makes me sigh with a smile. Perhaps in contrast anyone would cause a lessening of my political angst. But it's not anyone else. It's him. I no longer dread nighttime.