Via Louise Marley's blog, the line from Alice Walker's open letter to Obama that made me cry.

"We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. "

I've been accused of not hating people. And I think that it is because, by some trick of brain chemistry I have always been able to put myself in other people's shoes. I've always understood, at least on some level, why it is that people do things, even things I consider "bad" or unwise.

And really, I have never considered myself a "good" person. Too often I can see how those very same things I consider unwise or bad are just a shadow away from the things I do in every day life.

So reading this awesome letter to Obama (Alice Walker rocks out on many levels, and I thank Louise Marley who herself is a rocking feminist science fiction writer for putting the entire text on her blog) made me figure out how to think about the juxtaposition of my happiness at the presidential election and my sadness at the passing of the anti-gay marriage law in California.

I think Obama can figure out why people do things, too, and I think he understands how close we all are to falling over some cliff into a deep ravine of our own making, but I think that maybe the people in California have forgotten that we all own a piece of darkness.

And it doesn't make sense to forbid people from having a little light to ameliorate that darkness.