I feel very passionate about this election. I've been following the process for months (and really years now), and somewhere deep within me there thrums the beat of near-frenzy as we wind down (or up) towards November 4. I feel passionate also about voting. Especially as a woman, I feel that it is both my privilege and my duty to vote whenever I can. Women suffered and sometimes died for my right to slide into that voting booth, and I do not feel that I have the right to decide that I'm too busy or not interested enough to get over there.

On my morning runs, I've developed a little game to distract me from the agony I'm enduring. I count political yard signs. I have very specific rules for this: signs and bumper stickers both count, I can only count signs that I actually run past (looking down a street and seeing a sign in a yard a few houses in does not count), while I can assume that if a yard has only a sign for the local Republican senate candidate that they are also voting for the Republican presidential candidate, I can not count that sign, and finally, if there are a couple of signs perched on the borders of side-by-side yards, I have to make a judgement call. Two yards or one? Let's face it, I usually decide based on whether or not I like the sign! (We're a battleground state here, and this morning Obama edged out McCain 5-4, btw.)

I have donated money to my candidate's campaign, my friends and relations know where I stand and who I will be pulling the lever (or touching the screen) for in a few short weeks. I have passionate conversations with like-minded individuals, and I can hear my son pick up the (also passionate) drumbeat of our beliefs. I'm proud of him for that. I will not however, put a yard sign in my yard, a bumper sticker on my car or a pin on my shirt.

This baffles my son. He's as out there for his candidate as he is for his football team. But he's nine and the nuances of these adult issues (fortunately) elude him. Am I not passionate enough? If I felt it more strongly, would I have a sign out there, proudly declaring? I don't think it's that, exactly. I am surrounded, both here and in my home by people I love very much. They also happen to be people with whom, in some cases, I disagree quite ardently. Our relationships are not about liberals or conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, left or right. They are not about these things, and I do not want them to be. In my world, we all ultimately want the same thing, it's nothing more than semantics to say that we disagree about how to get there.

On the way home from school one day (we count signs and bumper stickers in the car too), Callum finally asked if we could put the sign that's sliding around in the back of the car into our yard. When I said no, here's how I explained it to him: We know that some of our neighbors will be voting differently from us, and that's okay. (It really is!) We know we disagree, and we love each other enough to be respectful of those differences. How would you feel though, if every night when we got home we had to look at a sign for the other guy in their yard? He got it then, I think. Suddenly our friendships would be about more than what they are, and not in a good way. That sign, that vote, would become the thing, highlighting the differences between us rather than what we all already share.

So here, and out in the front yard, is all I'm going to say about that. Those who know us know where we stand, and those who disagree with us also know that I respect and love them enough to not make it a part of who we are. All I'll end with is to say, go out and vote on November 4th. I can't wait to do it. I can't wait to stand up and participate. It's the process and the participation that's the key.