Here in Oregon, we vote by mail, and have for almost 30 years. I expect my ballot to arrive anny day now, and I can’t wait to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, to help permanently expunge the regrettable stain of Donald Trump and return a modicum of normalcy to the national and world stage.
Right now, though, the jitters have set in and don’t want to let me go. Along with millions of others in 2016, I lived through Hillary Clinton’s mind-boggling Electoral College loss, dressed in a pantsuit in the middle of my newsroom, surrounded by journalist colleagues. I won’t be fooled again.
To stay balanced in this unstable period, to keep from getting lost as the election draws near, I’m making lists of things I need to do vs. things I don’t need to do. It’s an exercise designed to preserve my sanity and, by association, the well-being of those around me.
My lists are bifurcations, personal protests against the confusing and abhorrent political landscape that blights our days and invades our dreams. They’re action blueprints during an insane moment in American history, when it doesn’t seem to matter whether we’re lied to or not, when a slick culture war takedown gets more play in the media than a sound policy position.
They are literal lists, chicken-scratched onto printer paper with a cheap pen scavenged from the desk of the pharmacy employee who gave me my Covid booster and pneumonia shot last week. Black ink in large letters, the kind I can see without my bifocals on.
Here are examples of these promises to myself:
I need to get outdoors and experience the change of seasons, the bright leaves and the damp woods, to see things clearly and improve my mood. I don’t need to isolate myself, doom-scrolling and stewing over the falsity that people can’t do better, pandering to those who choose self-interest over the common good.
I need to curate my news consumption such that I gain a broad understanding of what is happening in our nation and the wider world. I don’t need to overindulge in shiny-object trivialities that send me down dark paths where fear and helplessness lurk. I can read more widely or more deeply, but on a given day, if my spirit is sunk low, I can choose to forgo both.I live in a floating home just west of Portland. I need to pay attention to my surroundings and engage with them in holistic ways: walking the dike road above the Multnomah Channel, alert to Canada geese flying overhead and the distinct sound of a catfish jumping up from the river’s surface and back down, the slap of a life cycle reminding me of the limits of my own. I don’t need to stay focused on my mortality or the looming threat of fascism, but instead commit to prioritizing peace and contentment in the years I have left.
I remind myself that many good things are happening. My debut novel is coming out in April. I have the encouragement of a supportive and loving life partner. We have 12 grandchildren, one more due earthside before the polls close on Nov. 5.
Wondering to myself whether we will be living in an autocracy next spring only underscores the frustrating reality that we can’t know the answer until we know it. So a hiatus from the digital world, or at the very least a daily limit to self-inflicted exposure, would surely soothe my reason-parched soul.
I need to tend my to-be-read pile and inhale stories about the essence and fragility of life, with all its quirks and sorrows, and cultivate relationships with people who remind me I’m not alone. I don’t need to fall prey to clickbait stories that tell me why P. Diddy is in jail or bleat that the Jan. 6 insurrection didn’t matter.
Wringing my hands or clutching imaginary worry pearls are energy-wasting activities. I’m almost 67, solidly into my third act. As beloved author Anne Lamott observed in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, I really don’t have that kind of time.
I still lie awake at night sometimes, fretting over the state of our republic, attempting to explain to myself how we arrived at this unprecedented moment of peril, standing at a cultural crossroads, left or right, no in between.
In the morning I look at my lists, and I remember. I stretch, smile, and pet my dog. I go on.
***
Our friends at Corporeal Writing are reinventing the writing workshop one body at a time.
Check out their current online labs, and tell them we sent you!
***