My writing lifts me up, pulls me forward. gives me focus. When I sit down to write, I ask myself several questions: where am I right now?, what am I feeling? and is it the truth? This is a good morning for that, my mind is all over the place. It is cold, rainy, and cloudy, one of those grim November days (yes, I know it is still October) that suggest the loss of light and color, and the onset of winter.

The loss of color and light is a psychological challenge for me, my moods are closely tied to both.

This morning, Maria got up early and went off to see her mother, who lives a couple of hours from us.  The dogs are mopey, restless. I will leave in an hour to teach my writing class. First, I will have to let Chloe out of her stall, where she is fed her hay these days.

Still, I feel gloomy today, and that is a part of life, that is a part of being alive. To be sad is cleansing to me, sort of like flushing the sorrow out of my system. And I have felt much sorrow in my life, even as I feel strong and good now.

I love my class, they are so connected and open and creative. A creative infusion.

I have to counsel a friend today, he is upset – traumatized, really – as so many people are by the ugliness of the presidential election. He is not on the left or the right, he is not a supporter of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, he is an anxious man who has just absorbed too much anger, ugliness and pure hatred. It is in the air. He keeps trying to avoid the season of rage, he can’t.

A Thai journalist, a reader of my blog,  messaged me this morning, he was upset at concerns about the legitimacy of our election, he said he realized he has always taken America’s stability for granted.

Could he still take it for granted? Sure, I said, remember we had a civil war not too long ago that costs  millions of people their lives;  and countless riots, persecutions, hysterias,  scandals, depressions, bombings and catastrophes. We will be here on November 9.

What can I tell him my anxious friend here, really?

Democracy is not pretty or static. If you give everyone the right to vote, as we do, they will not always vote the way you wish or you would. Trauma is inevitable, so is the demagogue. I told him to go to upshot and look at the daily data report, today one candidate has a 93 per cent chance of winning, the other 7 per cent. It is over, I told him, they don’t want to say it, they can still make a lot of money over the next few weeks. But they know it.

Time to disengage and move forward, I do not care to spend my precious days in rage and fear. Suffering is a part of life, just as joy and hope are, an I accept life as good and beautiful, it is never just the way I want it.

So this morning I’ll head over to the Round House Cafe. Say hello to my friend Scott, get my coffee and teach my class. This afternoon, Maria is going to see a friend who had a minor surgical procedure and nearly died afterwards, for reasons no one can quite explain. She is alive, after great suffering, which is a good thing, and she reminds me to be thoughtful about just what it is I want to fear and obsess over.

James Joyce wrote that “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake.”  So is this presidential election, for many people, sometimes for me. Anger and fear are not good for anyone month after month.

For me, the way to awake from it is not to be afraid, to recognize that all of this, just as it is, and no matter what comes, is a manifestation of the glorious and sometimes  horrendous power that is life, that is all of creation, and all of human history.

The ends of things are always painful. But pain is part of being alive, of there being a world at all to live in and hope for and worry about.