Love Apples: Obama. Pollan. Woohoo!

It's been more than a week since Obama's victory. I haven't started to breathe completely yet. But I must say, partial breathing feels great!

I've been aware of how much I've been containing in the many many months prior to last Tuesday. I feared and hoped--even as through much of it, fear won out. The ugliness of the last eight years still dawning on me more every day, colouring who I was in my very ability to think that things might be ok again. And the McCain/Palin campaign's incitement to hatred reached registers I hadn't thought I would see openly displayed in my lifetime. I tried to hide from it--too raw making--but each throwaway snippet burrowed into me. Worry. Worry. Worry.

But after all the anticipation, it happened almost all at once. Early key states fell our way. And it kept going. And we all kept going.

There are many small ways that calm is trickling over me. The one that fits right into these pages is this: I mentioned a few weeks ago that Michael Pollan wrote an open-letter to the next president-elect for the New York Times Magazine about the urgent need for sweeping agricultural reforms. I hoped, as indeed many did, he would read it. I recently found out through a friend that Obama has not only read it, but made reference to it in this interview.

I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen [sic] about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector.

This might indeed be a new day.