Reflections from the Slippery Slope

More than a Physical Slide...oh yeah!

My first knowledge of life on the Slippery Slope was all physical—-foot neuropathy, hearing loss, and funky vision, followed by The Big Fall, breaking my femur in four places and nearly dying from blood clots during surgery. I barely had a chance to acknowledge the PHYSICAL when a startling realization erupted: The Slippery Slope encompasses MIND boggling fears, a roller coaster of EMOTION, and everything it can conjure to squash one’s SPIRIT. A true multi-faceted, full spectrum experience.

Most of all, the Slippery Slope makes me THINK—-think deeply and think a lot. I constantly ruminate about how things are, what is not right in the world and how we treat each other. I imagine, wonder about, and intensely analyze why people are as they are, different from me, far from my agenda of what is proper and right. The state of my America makes me sick. I know my earthly time is limited at 78 and I feel pressured into doing something, anything to change this country’s downward trajectory.

At my advanced age and in my weakened condtion, I should be/could be sitting peacefully outside my fantasy casita in the New Mexican desert glorying in a blazing Santa Fe sunset. I could try to forget… that I walked outside having to use a cane…that maybe I drink too much wine…that maybe I should not patronize Starbuck’s with its insanely rich CEO…I could try to forget…that peace has eluded my all my life.

While watching my fantasy sunset, the grizzled spectre of Edward Abbey, environmental guru, flashes bigger than any show in the sky. “Obey little. Resist much,” says Cactus Ed. And I know I cannot give up…not when the HOA makes me remove my upside down American flag, not when my disabled self is unable to march in protest, not when the people I try to rile up obviously care about eggs more than the loss of 249 years of democracy.

It seems too many Americans are playing the violin in the orchestra on the Titanic. As it sinks (and maybe America won’t?), I will not cease in offering life jackets to those who will wake up enough to put them on.

The Slippery Slope has captured all of me. I switch from physical pain and suffering to watching my mind, to screaming in emotional outburst, to allowing spirit to comfort. As long as there is hope, as long as I can do something, let me do it, today and as long as I can.

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.” ——-Clarissa Pinkola Estes