Put That Match Down and Go to the Demo Instead

You can only walk around so long with your hair on fire.

For one thing, people quickly get used to the flames. Oh, that’s Jan. Her hair’s on fire. And they just go on with their lives and discourse, brushing the flying embers off their sleeves and shielding their eyes from all the great illumination coming from your head.

And then you, yourself, become impervious to your hair being on fire. You stop scratching your head with your fingers and instead use a wire coat hanger, maybe you stop being puzzled altogether, having set your course with arson. The more you accommodate a raging fire on your head, the worse it gets.

I have decided that hysteria is unsustainable.

I am still going to do what I can to represent myself as a believer in democracy. This morning, I called my Republican U.S. Senator’s office and, amazingly, talked to a real person after having left messages for the last couple of weeks. I told the real person I’m upset about Social Security and Medicaid, folding up the list of 100 other things I’m upset about and putting it in my jeans pocket. Just two things, I told myself. Be intense about two things.

Then I voted. Two primary elections – one for alderman and the other for state school superintendent. I was voter #78 at 11:30 a.m. which is pretty good for a spring primary.

Then I said okay to going to a Save Our Medicare demo tomorrow at a Republican Congressman’s office on the far south side. My big worry now is that I need to make a sign. This requires a trip to the attic to find poster board from some kid’s science fair extravaganza twenty years ago.

Tonight, I’ll work on my Get Out the Vote postcards for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election while we watch Chopped. Alligator liver + apricot paste + hearts of lima beans. Magic!

These aren’t big things, but they are things. Moreover, they are things done without the distress of out of control flames. I cannot weep and write postcards at the same time. The ink will run.

This is the settling into a new way of life. Eat, sleep, work, play, defend democracy. Not be nuts. Resist the urge to be nuts. Keep the fire at bay.

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Photo by Wallace Henry on Unsplash