Be Subversive: Vote

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, February 9, 2016. If you live in New Hampshire, you have one, single, task that absolutely, positively must get done today: Go down to your local polling place and VOTE.

Doesn’t matter if you have that Trump swagger. Or if Rubio is your guy (even if Santorum couldn’t think of a single thing Rubio accomplished in the senate, never mind. Santorum is a loser.) Or perhaps you like the cut of Jeb’s jib, Or you believe in Trussing Ted. Or Carson, or Carly , or Christie. or Kasich. Pick your guy and mark your ballot. Think carefully about who you figure would represent you best. Vote you conscience, in spite of all the manure that’s been flung around. Seize an ideal and cling to it. Even if your guy is polling at .02%, it’s your vote and you can use it any way you want. You might as well vote your beliefs.

Your vote has power. Why else do you think they keep making it harder to vote, passing new restrictions, trying to trip you up? Don’t let ’em beat you! Go down there, show your ID, and demand a ballot. It’s your right.

Yes, I admit I’d like to see ’em Bern down the polls tomorrow, but I’ll be happiest if we break records for turnout. If you are for Hillary, get yourself down there ’cause she really needs your help!

All the posting, preaching and posturing on social media counts for zilch if you don’t vote. This is going to be a very close one — hell, they were tossing coins in Iowa! Every vote down to the old lady tottering in on her walker and the new-minted voter sending off a text just before heading in behind the curtain. You all count. A handful of votes could literally make all the difference.

Especially you millennials. They’ve been dissing you, condescending and sneering at you. Show those smug old bastards and turn up in droves. Vote. Mark that ballot, let your voice be heard.

If you don’t like what your party has handed you, show ’em you’re not going to take it. Write somebody else in. Re-register as the other guys and vote for one of them. Don’t be bullied and don’t be bamboozled. Don’t let anyone else tell you who to vote for (unless you really trust them). This is your vote. You have absolute power over it.

Even if you cast your ballot for Vermin Supreme (he promises you a free pony!) it will be counted. If enough of you do it, you’ll have the bean counters squawking and the pundits soberly discussing what this new trend means. Suits on camera will wonder why you threw your vote away, but you know better. You got them chattering about what you did. The only way you throw your vote away is if you don’t use it.

Let me say this again, because it is important: The only way you throw your vote away is to not use it.

Vote on your way to work, or on your way home, or on your lunch break. Even if you’ve never voted before, this is your chance to vote in one of the strangest elections in living memory. Savor your moment of participation. Use it wisely.

They try to make you feel small and unimportant, like you don’t count. Hell yes you count! They may ignore you, ignore your face, refuse to listen to your opinions, walk away when you try to talk, but when you walk into the voting booth and mark that ballot, they’ve got to listen. You hand ’em that ballot, and they’ve gotta take it. Your vote counts just like everyone else’s, no matter what airs they put on, how big their house is or how fat their paycheck is. Your vote is equal to theirs. Shove it in their faces.

Because, for a lot of you, your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents struggled and protested, got beaten up and killed to get their legal say. For you. So you could stride into that polling place with your head held high and grin. They can’t stop you. You’re gonna vote. Your gonna have your say.

Let’s scare the crap out of all those people who don’t want us to vote, who are scared we won’t vote the way that they want us to vote, scared we’ll upset their applecart by voting our way, not theirs. Let’s turn out in record-breaking numbers and blow things right out of the water.

Maybe you’ll enjoy it so much, it’ll become a habit. Boy, will that mess up their demographics and stereotypes! What are they going to do about all these suddenly active and interested groups that they used to be able to count on staying home?

Not any more. We are going to subvert the system.

We’re gonna vote.

It’s Complicated

I had to take a day and just regroup. I was haunted by anxiety, overwhelmed by details, feeling like I was clinging to a cork in white-water rapids. Those obnoxious, if well-intended little inspirational messages preaching Take Time For Yourself, Simplify Your Life, Slow Down and Appreciate the Beauty of Things kept showing up on my feed, reminding me incessantly of the impossibility of following their blithe advice.

Sure, if you have the luxury of being able to say, “I’ll just blow off those commitments I made to my friends/family/associates/community,” then you can sit with that cup of tea and listen to the birdsong, have that glass of wine on the deck, watch that sunrise or whatever. You can schedule “You” time and not feel guilty about it.

Never mind those other inspirational messages telling you how you need to care, you need to act, only you can change the world for the better, get out and get active or the bad guys will win.

Never mind those articles you read about how important it is to be there for your kids, to work hard on relationships and friendships, to listen, to reach out to people, to be compassionate.

Or how important it is to take time to exercise every day, to cook wholesome food from scratch, to read books, to meditate, to take time with your appearance, to shop carefully and read labels, to do regular breast exams, to brush and floss after every meal.

Or how important it is if you want to be a successful writer (or whatever) in today’s competitive world you need to get your name out there, market aggressively, write blogs and articles, get involved in organizations, attend workshops, retreats and classes, go to conventions, read marketing blogs and articles, devote time every day to social networking as well as keep cranking out the material and submitting it.

I’ve gotten so that the morning dawns and I dread facing it, because I know I’m going to go to bed that night feeling like I’ve failed to do even a small part of what I ought to have done. I won’t have spent enough time being there for my kids and devoting myself to my spouse. If I took the time to exercise, I won’t have gotten in the social networking. If I finished the revisions to the short story, I didn’t get to making that wholesome dinner and planning meals for the week. I meditated, but I didn’t get to the volunteer work for the (insert worthy organization here).

The world is filled with misery and injustice. My “friends” on Facebook can’t wait to share the latest pathetic puppy or homeless cat that needs adoption, the latest disease or disability I need to be more aware of, the latest outrageous thing the GOP/Christian Fundies/Right-wing loonies/gun nuts/greedy corporations/Supreme Court/corrupt politicians have said or done. Kidnapped schoolgirls, rapes in India, war and aggression and terrorist attacks. And everybody tells me I need to get involved, I need to care, I need to do something about it, and I am a bad person if I don’t. Martin Niemoller keeps getting thrown at me (“They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up…” etc. etc.). I weep with helpless ineffectuality because all I can manage is some Slacktivist sharing of memes and signing of Internet petitions. Evil will triumph because I didn’t do enough to stop it.

There is a scene in Jesus Christ Superstar (It’s on my mind, as we recently watched the new production with Tim Minchin as Judas) right after Jesus has thrown the moneylenders out of the temple. He is gradually surrounded by people begging to be helped and healed. The crowd gets thicker, the chorus of voices pleading for attention swells as Jesus struggles to deal with them, saying, “There’s too little of me, too many of you–” and finally, overwhelmed and mobbed, he shouts, “Heal yourselves!”

That’s how I feel right now.

Okay, sure, I need to prioritize. But how do I choose when everyone clamoring for me to adopt their pet priority has a valid point? There is no clear guideline for what is right, no guarantee I’ll make the correct choice, that I won’t look back and regret that I didn’t spend more time doing something else.

“Me” time just becomes one more voice in the mix clamoring for attention, one more thing which, if chosen, means I neglect something else. But I guess it beats laying curled up on the bathroom floor weeping from indecision and guilt.