What? You Are Not…?
walking the road less traveled
Last Tuesday was voting day. I had plenty of strength that morning to fully enjoy exercising my civic responsibility, and so we walked into the little church a few blocks away that was our polling place. Behind two long tables sat five smiling women, all dressed in red, white and blue, all of our vintage. They looked like they were truly enjoying their work.
The first accepted my photo ID and asked me to state my name. The second in line had a paper roster and pen in hand. The first one leaned over and loudly declared to the second one, here’s a non-political one. The second one put a capital N by my name. The third one handed me a folder with just one ballot instead of two like the person in front of me had received.
This was an election that included the contest for mayor of our city, as well as some council representatives and some school board members. It also offered members of the Republican Party a choice for their candidate for the governor’s office, to be voted on later in the year.
Non-political? I inquired, looking around to see to whom she was referring. Who, me?
They all grinned at me and offered no further response, no explanation. After a bit of a brain lag, it dawned on me that, because I was not a registered member of the Republican Party, I had been tagged non-political, so I would only receive the appropriate ballot. I’m anything but non-political. She could have said non-partisan , which is what our local races supposedly are, or non-Republican, and I could still get an N in my roster slot. But non-political? I was there voting wasn’t I? Doesn’t that make me political, at least to some degree?!
Others nearby turned their heads and looked at me. This is a pretty red state. I felt like I had a big Scarlet Letter N stamped on my forehead. I was non-political. They might as well have said I was counter-cultural, and wondered what scary thing I was going to be up to next.
Sometimes living in the last decades of life, with or without a complex chronic disease, feels like being radically countercultural. It feels like being a registered blue in a state of red. The culture promotes and celebrates strength and certainty and confidence and beauty and achievement and urgency and cure and accomplishment and more of just about every kind of stimulation, everything biggerbetterfaster!
The list of values that defines my days is just the opposite - vulnerability and dwindling and frailty and uncertainty and acceptance and collaboration and curiosity and dependency and less and quiet and calm. These are things I cultivate, things that help me heal, things that offer the least amount of drain on my limited store of energy.
It seems to me there’s an art to being counter cultural as life is winding down. At the very least it involves practicing these habits:
No apologies – we are what we are, we do what we can do, and that’s enough to matter.
Less is more – the less you have to think about, the less stress you experience, which translates directly into more energy.
Simplifying your surroundings – see #2
Fulfillment – focus on what makes you most fully human, most completely your true self, rather than what you can achieve.
Receiving - you have given so much throughout your life. Now is the time to simply receive the gifts of others. It will bring them pleasure, just like it once did you.
And the cool thing about being countercultural is that you discover how beautiful you are. People start looking to you to as an example of how to explore a different perspective, a different way of life. You are other, most certainly. But you are not scary other. You are look how much life still has to offer other.
What do you think? Does this ring true for you? In what ways do you enjoy being counter cultural?
I threw a serious tamtrum at the food bank where I volunteer. it felt good!!!
I’m glad to hear you too were somewhat alarmed at the term “non-political” at an election! I hadn’t thought about the fact that all the things I was voting on that day were non-political. It was just fulfilling my civic duty! No one else was there when I went so I didn’t have to face any “real” voters.
I never thought of myself as counter-cultural either, but since I fit in most of the categories you listed I guess I am too. I guess I mostly just think of myself as cooperating with reality!