I’ve never been politically active.  But when a friend calls you to say she wants to come visit you on her way to the Women’s March in DC, and Oh, by the way, you should come with me, you (as a woman) cannot not easily say no.  Even if you’re an introvert.  So I said yes, with some hesitance: what if it’s really exhausting?  What if I don’t agree with the entire platform of the march?  Will I be implicitly supporting things I don’t agree with?  If I’m not really an activist, will I even belong?

My decision became more complicated when the New York Times published an article (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/womens-march-abortion.html) in which one of the four organizers of the march, Linda Sarsour, was quoted as saying, “If you want to come to the march you are coming with the understanding that you respect a woman’s right to choose.”  I was out in the garden, pulling soggy leaves away from my (still-blooming!) violas, when my husband came out of the house to show me the article.  He was apologetic, even nervous - he knew I wouldn’t be happy.  And I wasn’t.

I am not pro-choice.  And that was my biggest concern going into this march:  What was this march really about?  

I knew why I wanted to go.  I wanted to go because I was tired of sitting alone in my house, reading quote after upsetting quote, and article after depressing article, about Trump’s shockingly indecent behavior, with an ever-increasing dread as I imagined the next four years of his lies, insults, and hateful speech.  After the release of the infamous video in which Trump gloats about assaulting women, I wrote to a friend that I have never felt less safe in this country.  While no one on either side of the political divide has stood by his statement that “you can do anything [to women],” apparently a very large group of people have decided that it’s not really such an offensive idea - at least, not offensive enough to disqualify him from being our president.  And I was sick of sitting alone in my living room worrying.  I wanted to say something.  I wanted to march to send a message to our new president: “This is not okay! Be a better person!”

But now came the rub: no pro-life groups were being allowed to partner with this march.  An organizer had basically said that if you’re pro-life, you shouldn’t come.

It took me several hours, and conversations with several friends (including the friend who had invited me, Laura), before I felt confident that I should still go.  This might surprise some of my pro-life friends, to whom there is nothing more vile than the idea of a mother killing her own child.  How could I go and be another body counted towards supporting this?  But my own desire to send a message to our new president, a message to change not his policy per se, but his heart, still burned to be fulfilled, invitation or no.  On top of this, I decided that it was even more important to go now that I was uninvited.  I decided I wasn’t going to let the march further divide the country by party line - I can and I will stand up for immigrants, for refugees, for women, and for people of color, whether or not I check all the boxes of the stereotypical liberal.  I want to be a part of the conversation, whether or not they want me in it, and to do that, as my friend said, we have to show up.

So there it is: this pro-life woman stood with you at the march.

We drove into DC on a Friday afternoon with no trouble.  Traffic was almost nonexistent, since most people in DC have inauguration day off of work.  Our plan was to stay with an old friend from school.  But that evening, Laura’s mom and sister decided to drive down from Pennsylvania last minute, and after some phone calls and bed shuffling, Laura and I ended up staying with my aunt and uncle, who live near the Mall.  My aunt was marching too, with her college friends, and was very excited to host us.  The morning of the march, they fed us eggs, bacon, and grapefruit.  We talked about quality education, clean water, and what our mothers taught us about being strong women.

On our way.  One pussy hat and two clear backpacks.

Then we rushed out the door in a whirlwind, grabbing scarves (but not water - Laura’s mom and sister would be bringing that) and making last-minute bathroom trips as my aunt quickly made a sign.  The weather was cloudy, and would be all day.  A misty sort of rain fell on us, the kind that’s far too light to merit an umbrella.  Already the sidewalks were busy.  Groups of 2-20 people appeared around every corner, all walking towards the mall.  We saw our first men - we were so excited!  Men care about women too! - and one of them kindly pointed out that my aunt, in her rush, had left out the G in “strength” on her sign.  We saw the pussy hats that Laura had heard about: pink knitted hats with two corners meant to look like cat ears.  Not representing a vulva, as I’ve heard some of my conservative acquaintances suggest.  (Though there were plenty of body parts being represented - I saw to women wearing knitted breast hats, complete with nipples, later in the day.)

Black yard signs with MLK quotes lined our way, one in each yard, left over from MLK day.  I wished I could have borrowed one for the march, or thought to quote him the night before, when I had had the chance to make a sign:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The energy in the air was electric.  Everyone was happy, cheerful, and excited.  Random waves of cheering spread down the streets.  We greeted about every other person we passed.  “I love your sign!”  “I love yours, too!”  The official rules stated that all backpacks must be clear, and clear backpacks, like the ones from elementary school, abounded, filled with granola bars and water.  We were late getting to our meeting point, the Woolly Mammoth theater, where our friend from school would be working through the day, selling cheap food and water to the protesters.  But our lateness just added to the thrill of the rush, and we still found time to pause to get our pictures taken, and return the favor for others, as the capitol building came into view.

After weeks of desperate questioning, introspection, news-reading, and crying, around the country in our separate bedrooms and cubicles, we were doing something.  We were saying everything we so badly wanted to say to someone that mattered.  We were standing up, and we were not alone.

The Woolly Mammoth theater (or just “Woolly” to those who know it) was already packed with people.  One group handed out pins stating “Purse Power.”  I think they were advocating using your buying choices to support businesses with good practices.  (That’s one unfortunate thing about protests - you can only learn so much from a six word slogan.)  Another group was there to hand out free apples.  We wove through the lobby and found our friend at the desk, looking bright despite her four hours of sleep.  Every thirty seconds, someone came up to ask her another question.  Nearby, someone had made a “This is what a feminist looks like!” cardboard picture frame, and people took turns getting their pictures taken while holding it around their face.

Inside the Woolly Mammoth Theater at 9:20am

Laura was texting her family.  They were stuck at the metro station.  From the way the line to the trains was moving, it looked like about an hour before they would even be able to board.  At this point it was 9:30, and the rally started at 10:00.  So much for meeting up - we needed to get moving.

On our way to the mall!

Now the sidewalks were more than busy - they were crowded.  We were no longer walking in groups - we were forming streams.  The Starbucks on the corner had a line fifty feet out the door.  Occasionally we passed a white concrete berm, and fencing stood along sidewalks seemingly at random.  A person on a scooter sat stuck next to her companion as the crowd eddied around her; she couldn’t drive over the fence’s metal supports.  At the next intersection, a soldier in a sandy uniform nodded to us as he ushered us across the street.

We hit the mall from the north side and tried to make it towards the southeast corner, where the rally stage would be.  There were people as far as the eye could see, milling about on the large expanses of grass and white plastic covers. Everyone looked excited, resolute, joyful.  Most people milled about, but there was a general sense of movement toward the rally point.  For no apparent reason, cheers occasionally rippled through the crowd.   Our simmering excitement was just bubbling over.  Someone even gave us an extra sign they had - it said, We the People Protect Each Other and had a picture of a black woman’s face, stylized by the same artist who had painted Obama’s Hope posters.  As the crowds thickened, everyone began holding up their signs. 

Kindness Matters

Putin Trump 2016

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

Do Justice, Love Mercy, March Proudly

This pussy (picture of a cat) bites back!

Near fourth street, it became so crowded that we could only inch forward.  Every stack of metal fencing or wood pallets held at least ten people above the heads of the crowd, standing together like an island and holding up their signs.  One boy, perhaps eight years old, beamed at the crowd as he held his “This is what a feminist looks like!” sign.

“Can you see anything?” I asked a woman on one of the piles, hoping she could tell us if there was an entrance ahead to the actual march route on Independence Ave.

“People!” she replied.

I supposed I should have been more specific.

Laura in front of one of the islands of raised people.

By now we were stuck maybe fifty yards from the corner of the Museum of the American Indian.  It became clearer and clearer that not only was it impossible to make it near the rally stage, we weren’t even going to make it to the planned march route.  I was concerned at how we were all going to march anywhere, anyway - how were they going to get this giant crowd to turn around and go toward the White House?  The chants had started in force, too.  Many were simply silly, and poking fun at the new regime: “Hands to small to build a wall!” “Let’s build a fence around Mike Pence!”  A popular chant that was also on lots of signs, was: “My body, my choice!”  If I thought they were referring to sexual consent, I’d be all over that chant - but of course that’s not what they meant.  So during those chants, I simply didn’t join in.  I doubt anyone could tell.

It was now so crowded that you had no choice but to be touching everyone around you.  If you spoke out loud to your companion, the six other people around you listened in, and then asked cheerfully where you had traveled from. When people wove through the crowd, they literally slid past, and everyone else had to press into each other to make way.  Some tried to go forward, and some tried to go backward.  I wished each one luck as they went by.

Hope Lives Here

#LoveArmy

(Over a picture of Princess Leia) A Women’s Place is In the Revolution 

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-damental Rights

This pussy (picture of a tiger) bites back!

The mood of the crowd was going from happy to antsy.  The “excuse me” ’s were getting a little less polite.  Laura was ready to find some air, and honestly, so was I, so I grabbed her elbow and we stepped behind a crowd-weaver who was going back toward the Washington Monument.  It took us maybe fifteen minutes to go several yards, where the press of the crowd was less, and I was able to lean forward and stretch out my lower back a bit.

Thanks to the giant emergency cell towers that had been set up around the mall, Laura was still able to text with her family.  They had finally made it on the metro, but in the wrong direction - they were riding the train to the end of the line so they could get on a fresh train going the right way.  The ones coming toward the mall were still all full.  We spent some time chatting with the ladies around us, wondering if Trump would be impeached, and if Mike Pence would be any better.  Occasionally the crowd would break into song - “This land is your land, this land is my land…” was sung several times.  We all learned how poorly we knew the second verse.  There was even a rendition of “I Will Survive.”

If you look closely, you can see the capitol!

The crowd was squishing together again.  I kept looking around at all the signs with so many different messages - women’s rights were most common, yes, but there were people there representing environmental concerns (One Planet; Earth - What a mamma!), equal treatment for minorities (Black Lives Matter to This Rabbi), general political concerns (Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities - Voltaire), and sheltering refugees (“Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here!”).  This was so much more than a women’s march - this was a march for all our concerns, for everything we saw that was going wrong, for every person that was hurt or insulted by Trump, his campaign, or his supporters.  This was so much better than sitting with my sadness by myself.  This was standing up with my country, for my country.  This, I realized, was beautiful.

“Tell me what democracy looks like?”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

“Tell me what democracy looks like?”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

The crowd was thick again, and we had given up all hope of seeing even one of the jumbotrons that was projecting the rally.  It was time to move on.  I grabbed Laura’s elbow again and we joined a stream of walkers - and stopped moving after about two feet.  It was another ten minutes before we had the opportunity to move again.

Once we made it out of the crowd, we took some deep breaths and tried to make a plan.  Throughout the entire day, it was hard to make any sort of conversation - there was just so much going on, sapping your attention at every turn.

Be the change you want to see in the world

Love Trumps Hate

3 Generations of Nasty Women

I’m with (arrows in all directions) HER

This pussy (picture of a snarling caracal) bites back!

I eventually expressed to Laura that we should try to find water, since ours was still stuck with her mom on the metro.  By this time it was almost 12:00, and I was up for eating one salty granola bar without water, but not my leftover hotel trail mix.  I thought it would be best to try to circle a block off the mall and look for a CVS or something.  Some tents labeled “Refreshments” gave us a few seconds of false hope before we realized that they were just left over for the inauguration.  So towards the edge of the mall it was.  

The crowd on Madison Drive was marching in an ambulatory sort of manner, and we joined them, thinking we’d branch off at a cross street.  Now it felt like a march!  We were chanting and moving at the same time.  We passed the steps of the National Gallery of Art, and the steps were packed!  People were whooping and chanting (“We need a leader!  Not a creepy tweeter!”).

Silence equals Violence

Expect Patronum! (with Bernie Sander’s glowing blue head) After all this time? …Always.

Held by a man: It’s okay to have a penis. Just don’t be a dick.

Do not go gentle into that goodnight: RAGE rage against the dying of the light

We Will Overcomb (picture of Trump’s hair)

The National Gallery of Art

The first intersection we (almost) reached was so packed with people still coming to the march that we just broke off back into the mall and went around them.  The next block had an odd sight - an ice rink, complete with people skating, and a little Pavilion Cafe that only looked overrun if you peered inside the windows.  Maybe, I thought, we could get in line in there and just buy water.  It couldn’t take that long, right?

Luckily, we found the drinking fountains before we even got in line.

Laura’s mom and sister had finally made it to the march, but they were stuck in the crowd right where we’d been before - at the Museum of the American Indian.  Laura advised that they get out of there.  We left the crowded Pavilion - with long lines of women for both the men’s and women’s bathrooms - and found, to our surprise, a completely empty sidewalk.  I stumbled to a stop and just stared at it for several seconds.  It was a weaving path through the Smithsonian’s Pollinator Garden, and there was even, to our delight, a stone bench inside.

The Pollinator Garden

We sat on the bench, and soon the sidewalk was as busy as any of the others, as people realized it wasn’t a dead-end.  It was good to be sitting down for a while.  A chain-link fence separated us from the biggest crowds, and the trickle of people that came through the garden were sometimes entertaining.  One small child told his dad, “We were protesting!”  And as his dad nodded, he continued: “We could have gone to jail.”

Laura and I exchanged a silent look of laughter.  It was funny, and then cute, and then very poignant - we were not going to get arrested.  Expressing your opinion, even expressing it strongly, with signs and shouting and crowds piled on crowds - is not illegal here.

“Tell me what democracy looks like?”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

We finally met up with Laura’s mom and sister under a giant silver tree sculpture near the ice rink.  They were tired but happy to have made it - we were happy they were here, and happy to have more water.  A quick potty break some of the many, many, many porta potties went relatively smoothly, with Laura exclaiming that she’d never been to an event with such little pee on the floor of the potties.  I should have waited and used her’s.

Now it was 1:15.  Time, finally, for the official march to begin.  We hopped back on Madison Ave and joined the crowd pushing its way west toward the White House.  Signs flew, people shouted, protesters climbed trucks and concrete pillars (and Laura refused to climb a pillar with me).

Mind the Pay Gap

Not Mein Fuhrer

I Will Not Calm Down

Smash the Patriarchy

We are what make America great!

Slowly, slowly, we crawled passed the packed steps of the Museum of Natural History, crowded with grinning onlookers.  We peered down 12^th street as we passed and saw that protesters were also marching down Constitution Ave.  That made three marches in parallel - ours, Constitution’s, and the official one on Independence Ave.  It was a good thing the city had closed so many streets.  We met up with the official marchers as we turned north on 14^th.

A brilliant and talented group of people had brought their instruments to form a jazzy pep band.  The band marched along with us, each member dressed in a subway tile-esque jumpsuit with quotes from Trump’s assault video pasted on their bodies.   I only saw one well enough to read it: “I moved on her like a bitch.”  Despite how disturbing the quotes were, the band played upbeat, excited music, and everyone around them was nodding their head or shuffling to the beat.

As we rounded the corner from 14^th onto Constitution, all the separate marches joined up together.  Our pace slowed to a bare shuffle.  Moving through the intersection itself took ten minutes, with people starting a “Turn Left!” chant at one point when it became unclear if the crowd was flowing in the right direction.

See that traffic light ahead?  That's 14th and Constitution!

On the narrow block between 14^th and 15^th street, I saw the first and only pro-life demonstration I would see that day.  Before I even spotted this counter-demonstraton, the crowd around me began another “My body, my choice!” chant, alternating with the men shouting “Her body, her choice!”  As validating and heart-warming as it was to hear all the men in the crowd supporting us, especially considering how little consideration our current president has given to women’s choices, even against his own sexual advances, I still didn’t join in.  But I did smile.  Above the heads of the crowd I saw a brown cardboard cross - across the horizontal beam it said in white letters, “Repent and Believe.”  It wasn’t a message I had seen much of that day, and I peered through the crowd to find a man standing inside a circle of people who held hands around him.  The man held the cross against his shoulder with one arm and a megaphone with his other.  “What about the babies?  What about their choice?” he said again and again through the chanting.  He looked exhausted.  I wanted to reach out to him, but I didn’t know what to say.  I wanted to let him know that he wasn’t alone, but I didn’t know how to do that on short notice, in a crowd that’s slowly drifting by, with everyone chanting and shouting.  The people holding hands around him were facing outward, and they were wrapped, oddly enough, with yellow caution tape, like a living fence.  And they shouted louder than anyone, “My body, my choice!”

I realized then that the people circling the man were Women’s March protestors.  They had opened a space for him in the crowd, keeping anyone from getting close to him, and leading a counter-chant at the same time.  I have no idea how this arrangement came to be - a pro-life protestor protected from a giant crowd by pro-choice protestors.  Maybe the security guard, who stood inside the circle with the man and a few others (more pro-life protestors?  More security?  One of the legal observers we had been told would be present?), had asked some people in the crowd to do this.  Maybe they had offered.  It was a very strange sight, especially with the caution tape wrapped around their arms and torsos like a hastily-made halloween costume.  But in some ways it was a small glimpse of what I hope every protest can be like.  We may disagree with you.  We may even shout about it.  But we will never harm you.  We will be your shield.

“Tell me what democracy looks like?”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

“Tell me what democracy looks like?”

“This is what democracy looks like!”

The original march route had us marching up 17^th street, but some march volunteers standing in the road directed us to start walking up the grass and flooding the ellipse.  We were extremely excited to have received our first bit of official direction all day, and followed their orders happily.  “When we get to the White House,” Laura’s mom warned me, half sheepish and half determined, “I’m going to flip the bird to Trump.  Maybe flip two birds.”  We didn’t have far to go, however - about half of the ellipse was fenced off.  When we reached the chain-link fence and took pictures, the sight was a little of a let-down.  The white house was so far away, it was unclear from the photos that we were even there.  I learned later that people had left hundreds of signs leaning against the fence.

On the lawn leading up to the White House, facing back toward the Washington Monument.

Please save us, Checks and Balances!!

Me in front of the White House. Can you tell?  Look past the black hat right behind my head.

A view of the fence that blocked off half of the ellipse.

Maybe we can go around the side, we thought.  Laura’s mom took the opportunity for some bird-flipping, and we followed the crowd, which was not as packed now, around the eastern edge of the fencing. Soon, however, it was clear that going closer was not possible.  So we found ourselves walking up 15^th street, past the Treasury Department FCU.  No one seemed to be ready to stop marching.  Ahead of us, a shirtless cardboard Putin dangled a Trump marionette from two strings.  It reached a point where it was unclear whether 15^th was even supposed to be closed - but so many people were in the road, the cars had no chance.

Policemen on very brave horses!

Putin's Puppet

Looking backward at the "end!"

It was 3:30.  Aimless, I looked at Laura and said, “Well, I guess we did it!  We marched!”  And then, “Let’s find some food.”

Half an hour later, wandering the busy sidewalks with thousands of other starving women, we found a Dunkin Donuts next to a Jimmy Johns.  After a hangry planning session in which only Laura seemed to be able to use coherent sentences, Laura’s mom and I went to Dunkin for coffee, and Laura took her sister in to Jimmy Johns.  In line, I learned that Laura’s grandfather had helped write Bloom’s Taxonomy.  Half an hour later we reached the counter.

“How are you doing?” I asked the bedraggled cashier.

“Fine, how are you?”

“Great.  You hanging in there?”

“Of course, of course.  It’s no problem.”

Vitamin water, coffee, and donut in hand, we met Laura and her sister back on the sidewalk.   It turns out Jimmy Johns had run out of bread, so they were selling lettuce wraps instead and giving everyone free chips.  I was so hungry, I actually thought the lettuce wrap sounded better than a sandwich.

The street outside of Jimmy John's.  If you look closely, you can see the cars stuck in the crowd.

No bread - just a lettuce wrap and free chips!

Further on and further in, we walked back to Woolly, where we finished our wraps and waited for Laura’s friend to finish counting the donations from the day.  The security at the theater was trying hard to kick everyone out, but our ‘friend’ status kept us a spot inside.  I sat on the concrete floor with my back against the front desk, devoured the wet lettuce, cheese, and turkey, and wondered if I’d ever get up again.

The theater made around $1,400 out of their donations box alone that night, a good chunk of it in $20 bills.  My aunt called and told me she was ordering us pizza back at her place.  So we had one last walk, 45 minutes across DC.  The fences on the mall were already coming down and capitol building looked very nice, all lit up.  Once back at my aunt’s, I spent the evening with my cousin as he tried to get me to guess the names of European soccer teams.

After saying warm goodbyes to my aunt and uncle, Laura and I drove into Alexandria and dropped off her mom, sister, and friend at the friend’s apartment.  It was almost 10:00.  All we had to do now was drive back to Chestertown - 1.5 hours through the foggy night.  We talked about how wonderful it is to come together, how difficult it is to disagree within a family.  We talked about Ephesians 5, about churches, about priests.  We made it home, and told my husband about our amazing, joyful, powerful experience.

I went to sleep that night feeling more hopeful than I have in a long time.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.