Phoebe and I went to a republican party. She thought it would be fun. She wore her pearls. So did the woman in Blue.

We left early with two bottles of wine and a shaker full of Vodka when they began to pace and kick the furniture. Depressants aren’t recommended when one is feeling maudlin, yet excellent when celebrating.

My greatest fear was death. It was almost two years ago that my friend Trevor told me about Senator Obama. At the time I was fixating on the Earthquake that would wipe out Vancouver, pouring over article after article of the history and our due.

Fixations about doom are far more palpable than your ready-made fear when walking down the street late at night and someone asks you for change – you wear your thoughts of doom for days, and it infects others as you converse and interact: concrete moves out of the corner of your eyes; buildings take on the shroud of potential death traps; people feel your uneasiness, and uncertainty feeds the fear of what they will do with nothing holding them in place – change becomes something you don’t want to think about.

I feared for my family most – dearly.

We are a good people and we need someone to believe in, even if it is only for a night. Something great has happened and I feel for the first time that an Earthquake could come and destroy what I have seen everyday in our beautiful city, but it won’t destroy what I carry – the eternal belief that there is good in all.

It comes to that damn box of Pandora: hope is all that is left to humankind because of our eagerness to see, and now is the time to reclaim the virtues that we wagered away.

As I lay my head down tonight I will think of the woman in blue, Alpha, who spoke against the host at the Republican party and about finally being able to stop the slaughter of Gorillas in the Congo. She believes in this, I believe in this, and now anything is possible