Like thousands of Democrats, my car still sports a John Kerry sticker. (We got ours before Edwards was named to the ticket, so it's just a Kerry sticker.) And also like many others, we haven't been able to take down the Kerry signs in our windows and on our walls. We said we'd take them down after the inauguration. But we haven't. Taking them down would feel like admitting a defeat we still cannot face; admitting a truth we still cannot confront.
In today's Washington Post, Risa Sanders, a resident of conservative Great Falls, Virginia, explains why she hasn't taken her sticker off either: "They reassure us that we are not alone and that our sturdy army is mending."
She put words to a feeling I've been nurturing. The 2004 was not a war; it was a battle in a larger war. I still want the company of others who wear the scars -- and the uniform -- of that battle. My bumper sticker is my uniform, and it's no time to take it off.
More on what my sticker means to me below.
The days and weeks leading up to the election were hopeful ones. The tide seemed to be in Kerry's favor. For my wife and me, the rising tide hit its peak the night before the election, when we saw REM play at DAR-Constitution Hall, in the shadow of the White House. Never have I felt a greater sense of hope and exuberance. Michael Stipe, as usual, left no doubt about his inclinations, proudly sporting a Kerry tee-shirt and imploring the screaming crowd to vote. He gave us all a perfect vision of the future, which we embraced with sweaty, desperate arms.
We emerged from the concert hall onto unseasonably comfortable city streets, awash in a sea of ideological comrades giddy with anticipation and fervor. We went to bed that night staring at the ceiling, believing without any hesitation that Mr. Bush would start packing by the next evening.
Then the next day happened. And we're still struggling with that fact.
The bumper stickers and signs bring me back to that REM concert, and the other spirited and hopeful days before November 2. Removing the stickers and signs would admit that those days are where they, in fact, are: in the past. I want those days to be in the present, and I want them to be in the future. I want the words of Michael Stipe about tomorrow to ring in my ears now, reaching out for a tomorrow that we thought would come on November 2 but that has been slightly delayed.
My sticker is a handshake with my brothers- and sisters-in-arms. It is the tattoo that marks the bonding of the shared experience of war. It is a reminder to others that time is what we make of it; that defeat is a frame of mind; that the future hasn't happened yet.
How long will the sticker be on my car? Until the future is the present, and the past can safely be filed away.
