We were playing bocce ball and talking about – what else? – the election, and my friend whispered, “I said it today.”
She had been getting a massage and looked up at the person rubbing the knots out of her neck and quietly said, “I think he may do it.”
And the masseuse quietly said the same thing back.

Nervously looking around for spies, I told my friend I’d said it, too. In bed, drinking coffee, listening to a rare upbeat report on NPR. I said it to my husband and he shook his head and said, “Not yet, too soon.”

My teacher friend and I were walking our dogs when she confided that she and a colleague had just that morning agreed that they were daring to think positive. And then they cringed and agreed not to say it again.

At a neighborhood party I heard a college student start to say something about winning when an older woman across the lawn suddenly turned and said “shush.”

You don’t want to go too public. We’ve been tricked before. So if you must say it, maybe you should throw salt over your shoulder or kiss a newt or something.

You don’t want to jinx anything.

And good Lord, if you feel a victory dance coming on, pull the shades.

One thing, though. Hope sure beats dread and despair, which has been filling some people’s hearts. Witness the not-so-jokey-talk about the best places to move to in Canada. Vancouver has water. Montreal has French sympathizers.

But it’s still many days until possible jubilation. There are many intermissions in this endless movie. Confidence is risky. Cockiness will get you in smarty-pants trouble with the gods.

With this in mind, I took a day off and put my torn psyche in the hands of a two-year- old, a creature who faithfully believes that fog eventually lifts and rain stops, just because she wants it too. And when the sun comes out it will dry all the swings in the park before lunchtime.

The world of a two year old is, as she says “pretty fun.” With shoulders to ride on and swings that go higher and higher. No wish is denied. All wishes are reasonable. And tolerance is a given. If the yellow slide is occupied, you run over to the green one.

No one will challenge your claim that cows have Cheerios for breakfast. And if they do try to argue all you have to do is ask “why?” 20 or 30 times and they will concede.

Two-year-olds don’t have to meditate to be in the moment. They don’t wake up scared and asking, “Now, what’s happened?” They sing just because they feel like it. When they get cranky they admit it and say, “I’m having a hard time.”

They can deal with a financial crisis. If they covet a stuffed giraffe with legs that move and you throw up your hands and say “no money,” they accept it.

They are loud but they are not mean.

You can tune out all the grown-up junk when you’re sitting with a two year old and spreading peanut butter on apples. You can get very close and whisper, “Maybe, even better times are coming.”

Listen to the Whispering Hope Podcast of Another Voice on KRCB-FM

Are you suffering from the October furies? Do you find yourself unable to eat, work, walk the dog without obsessing over the latest nasty thing you heard uttered about your candidate? Do you find yourself muttering epithets you never before permitted in your living room?

A newspaper headline asked “How Low Can They Go” and I was strangely relieved to realize it was referring to our economic nightmare. Because had it been about the latest viciousness on the campaign trail I would have been compelled to read every spiteful remark and then gotten more agitated than I did the night before when the only way I could block out the news was to read a bloody murder mystery, just to calm my nerves.

I have friends who blame a sudden scary boost in their blood pressure on the campaign’s low road. I’ve had a rotten cough for a week that is not helped by screaming at the television.

Of course, it helps when you do something positive, like write a letter, mail a check or knock on doors but then comes a contemptuous remark from a familiar curled lip and you know that what ails you is probably going to last until the first Tuesday in November.

If we truly are such a shining city on the hill, so great, proud and strong, resilient and hopeful, wink, wink, blah, blah.. how can we be so small-minded and hateful?

Okay, I don’t mean WE. I’ve been polite up to this point. I mean HER. Gossip Girl. McCain’s knee-capper. The one who’s gone from curious to embarrassing to vacuous and now is sounding downright dangerous. The new Queen of Mean.

You try to ignore her but she creeps in.

In my Feldenkrais class the instructor was talking about human skeletal development and then suddenly paused to make sure we were all on the same side, evolution-wise.

In an email to my friend Sara, I accidentally added an “H” to her name and had to apologize. She is and has always been a Sara without an H. That other person, the one with an H, insists on intruding. We’re all infected. My friend Miriam had to return her new glass frames to the optician because they gave her a definite SP look.

Rachel, up in Mendocino, said she gets so mad she eats. Because she’s a creative cook she hasn’t had to leave her TV to go to the store for supplies. When she can’t stand watching or eating anymore, she retreats to her art studio and tears up tiny pieces of paper for a new collage. Her latest is one of Alaska melting into the sea.

Barack Obama said he can endure four more weeks of insults. Michelle Obama said when people say things that aren’t true about you, you keep rolling.

I guess the rest of us will have to do the same and put up with a few more weeks of gerund-mauling ugly talk and hope the media gets tired of re-running the same lying sound bites.

I’ll tell you one thing that helps. Reading about smart people, like the Nobel Prize winners. Brilliant people, smarter than anyone you know. They’re a good reminder of how much the world, even regular Americans, appreciates the finer minds among us.

Listen to the October Furies Podcast at Another Voice on KRCB-FM