Banner Day

It's nearly May, and so--nearly six months after the election--I have made an important executive decision in my own household: It's time to take the Obama/Biden banner out of our living room window and retire it to the basement, where all good banners go to be disappeared by non-voting, yet Democratic in spirit, building superintendents. 

Now the jaded among you, or those of you who have known me for longer than about ten minutes, might think that the banner has been in the living room this long because of what I shall call, generously, a lack of interest in the cleaning arts. This is not the case, although we will leave the discussion of the clumps of dog hair I hid behind the couch tonight instead of taking them to the trash can one room over while watching Gabriel Byrne's show (how I like to think of it) on HBO tonight for another "session."

No, the banner has been in the window because I like to look at it, still, because although I have succumbed to human nature by not walking around every waking moment of every single day with the words: We won! We won! ringing in my ears, I don't want to forget about what happened on that already distant-seeming election day, and I don't want the election itself to be the most significant victory. 

But even the most triumphant banner, when clumps of dog hair adhere to its sides, and bits of smushed banana dot its surface, is ephemeral by definition. I do not need a banner to remind me of what has been done, what must be done, what we will do. 

(But I am secretly hoping that my lovely superintendent can't bear to throw it away and tucks it in a back corner with the cleaning supplies, where I can peek at it every once in a while when I need a fix.)