Quite Ugly One Morning

Our custodian and I have a relationship that spans many years. Over that time, we have had occasion to talk about all manner of practical things: clogged toilets, broken windows, missing tables. Aside from these concern-based items which we muddle through, helping each other keep the school safe and clean, we have also talked about our kids and our jobs with the school district. We commiserate as parents and employees. And we talk sports. Mostly basketball. Over the past several years there has been a lot of basketball to chat about here in the Bay Area. But not once have we talked about politics.
Until now.
A few mornings ago, as I arrived in the small  hours of the morning, she opened with this: "Did you see what that president has been doing over in Iran?" Now we weren't talking about the door for room six and how to get a paper clip out of the lock. We were talking about a "commander in chief" who seems to have gotten it into his head that a shooting war will keep everyone quiet about his impeachment. "We gotta get rid of him," she continued. "He's dangerous." Specifically, I reflected, for our sons who are squarely in the proximal zone of any draft that might become necessary to provide more soldiers for this dolt to push around on his big map. "I didn't vote for him. And I'm sure not going to vote for him this time."
And suddenly, we had shared one hundred percent more about politics than we ever had before. The struggles of the Warriors from the three point line had been replaced by the struggles of warriors across the globe. This conversation was both affirming and depressing. As with so very many things, we were in agreement with what we wished would happen, but now we both felt a power larger than us moving pieces around the board.
We won't stop doing our jobs. Keeping an elementary school up and running is a vital enough function that neither of us feels called away. At the same time, we agreed that voting was something we would not skip. Not now. Things had lapsed to the point where the first thing we talked about in the morning wasn't Steph Curry's injured hand, but the looming war in the Middle East. And just like getting on the other end of a table that needs to be moved down the hall, I am more than happy to do my part to put things back into order.