And suddenly, November weather; a chill, at 4:30 a.m. and a starry dark, when Charlie asks to be taken for a walk. Frank packing and leaving for airport. Day begins. Election day. I have no idea when I will get to the polls, but I know I will. It’s a discombobulated day with the special one home from school again. Tag team, my daughter and I. I get to do my Ukrainian support group. I get to go on a walk to see the morning’s machines at work. A worker, he says his name is Jake, who runs an excavator sees me holding the special one in my arms, the dog on the leash, (we have misplaced the stroller so I am strolling with my arms straining) and Jake sees how fascinated these eyes are on his machine, and he says, would he like to sit on it? Certainly. And the day improves for one not feeling so well. In the late afternoon, we make it to the house and yard, and this is a nice time in the chilly air, playing outdoors. I get to stroll to my wonderful brook for a check in. A Novembery brook, blue and cold and the colors seeping away; the leaves in the water, not on the trees. It’s dark by the time we vote—both daughters and me and my daughter’s boyfriend go into the Town Hall, up the stairs. Mrs. Sturgis (Kitty), a good friend of both my parents is seated where she has seated herself for decades, checking voters in by name and street. She looks wonderful. She speaks fondly to my daughters about their grandmother. This is all a bonus to the ballot casting. I have voted in the room where decades ago I sat at my desk in third grade, oblivious of future politics and future joys of being a mother of voters voting with me in this building where my parents voted and where some of their friends still do too.