Finding and keeping our balance: Elders at the crossroads

By Jeri Hilderley

I long for peace and ease as stress and anxiety overtake me. How can I be an active part of the resistance against the fascist regime bludgeoning my people and still hope for some comfort along the way?

Many of us elders who are seasoned activists are halted at rocky crossroads: Do we put on our protective masks, dig out our marching boots and join the protests flooding the streets of our towns and cities? We’re not those sure-footed, fearless, feisty, determined warriors we once were.

We have osteoporosis, bronchitis, vestibular imbalance, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis. … We’re vulnerable and afraid. We can’t run from the cops, withstand vicious counter-protesters, march at a quick pace or stand in the rain and cold.

Or, do we hang back in a safe place, boost our egos with memories of our courageous pasts, and then accept miserable despair? No!

We must continue to use our minds and imaginations to craft alternate methods to expose, resist and overthrow the billionaire oligarchy wantonly smashing our carefully wrought structures, our educational programs, our histories, our bodies, our struggles for equal rights to health, education, jobs, homes, family, love, choice, happiness, joy, the rights belonging to all peoples. We must join this class struggle in whatever ways we can to defeat those demons once and for all.

We elders must honor ourselves and be honored, whatever our choice at the crossroads. We are part of the People Power, the Empath Power that will triumph over those papery, flimsy, false, flawed, trumped-up, musky-murky, money-powered mythomaniacs, desperately clinging to their failing capitalist system with schemes to undermine our Incredible Collective Humanity.

Jeri Hilderley is the author of “Fire Dragon Street Theater: 1962-67” and its sequel, “Wheelin’ Across the Land: 1967,” two memoir-driven novels about artists and activists in the sixties. Go to BOOKS – Seawave Recordings