Today was No Kings III. For a small town (like under 100,000…I think) we had a mighty force of courageous and outraged citizens demonstrating. I worked mostly at the membership table. I know I can talk to people if there is something between me and them….a table, a bar on the chair, even glasses. That’s not saying I like doing it, but I know I can do it if it’s needed. I held a sign for about 30 minutes towards the end. I made it myself…”Stop Deranged Trump Syndrome”. I think there is a better word for syndrome for the message I was trying to get across, but it’ll do. I was forthright in getting people to sign in, get them to take a “Fabulously Fighting Fascism” sticker until we were out. I told them about drop cards and why, even if they’re old and white, they needed one.

This picture sums up my whole day. I don’t know her name, she sat in her chair, in the sun waving her flag at passing cars and refused to give up, or give in. My hero! I couldn’t hold a sign unless I was in the shade of a tree. I’ll get stronger, but she showed us all how it’s done.

Part of why I am doing this is to fight back the anxiety of unemployment, looming recession and because it is horrible out there, and if we don’t stop it, it’ll only get worse. This week I’ve been to a TRACC Indivisible membership meeting and a SURJ.org local circle meeting. The circle meeting asked questions of what we would be comfortable in doing, gaging where we need to focus on to be a better team and support system for those in the community. One was to be a decoy car with a Mexican flag when ICE is in the area to give people time to go home where the government can’t get to them. My first thought was NO! That’ll get me shot. Which is a valid concern with the untrained stormtroopers making life miserable in the towns they infest. But then the evil pixie pops up her spiky little head to ask, “Would that be a bad thing?”

Yes, you evil sprite, it would be a bad thing to be shot and killed before I am ready to leave the earth. Again, it’s the passive suicidality trying to reassert itself into a more prominent role in my life. And the depression, anxiety, passive suicidality and the pixie can rearrange the deck chairs all the want, but I still own the boat! I still decide when the ship sinks or float. And damnit, it is going to sail until it reaches the Elysian shores we’ve all been promised in our individual spiritual studies. It just bothers me that I’m not cured. I still have to tackle the darker elements to the mat every day. I know, I’ve had this for decades, probably my whole freaking life if you look back at Distraction I wrote my first suicide-esque note when I was barely double-digits. I’m hoping it’s not too late to make a life of what life I have left, but every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.

I’m constantly trying not to let the thoughts of failure, giving up, of wasting my life and all that entails bog me down. I’m trying to write, but the ever present need for an income keeps me distracted from the comforting pools of creation. I set the goal at the end of last week to go back to the basics….take meds, exercise, eat 3 meals a day, pray and read the scriptures. Anything else is gravy, as they say. And then I caught myself piling on more and more things every day and I shut down. After going to the SURJ and TRACC meetings on Thursday made me withdraw from the world on Friday. It was hard to engage with people today, but I had the safe space of a barrier (even if it is imagined) me and them.

I know this is sounds like a doggy-downer post, it’s not. I got up, even when I didn’t want to, and went to the protest. I accomplished that. I shared my opinion, my jokes and my stake story with strangers. I am moving forward, but just like the dragonfly in the chrysalis, it is a struggle to emerge a new and stronger creature. And I just want to be the promised dragonfly instead of in a constant lava state.

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