(no subject)
I was out there today in DC, along with the other 500,000 people walking around the streets wearing pink pussy hats (of all different shades, and I saw a blue one too, actually) and carrying signs. The rally started at 10am but I'd decided, along with a small group of friends who we informally named Battle Buddies (because within the group we each had a Battle Buddy who we were supposed to stick with), that we didn't need to stand around and listen to famous people talk. So we aimed to get there at noon, instead, to be ready for the march to start at 1:15.
We couldn't make it to the start site, there were too many people (and, granted, some blocked off areas that made navigating the crowded areas more difficult). So we started off by walking down a parallel street to the march route (which google had helpfully drawn on their gps map). At some point we saw an opening to make it towards the actual march route so we cut over and...didn't make it. Instead we marched on one of the paths on the mall, in the same direction.
Note that half of this happened before the march had "officially" started. My guess is that people didn't know where to go, they couldn't make it into the rally, the route was helpfully posted online, so they just started walking it. We were borne along in the flow.
Every time we paused I yelled out to "check your battles buddies" to make sure we had everyone. Eventually that turned into a rallying cry for the group to stop and start together. It was great fun, even though Pixie had a tendency to wander ahead and we kept having to pull her back so as not to lose her from the group.
Finally we made it to the convergence points of all the "unofficial" matches with the "official" march. It was a standstill. We inched along for half an hour or so and then made our escape through a break in the fence into the Washington Monument lawn area.
At this point we lost half of the Battle Buddies, who I'd considered peripheral anyway because they were friends of friends and actually a solid group of four people on their own. They wandered off to find dinner.
We hung out there for a while, took some pictures of ourselves and the march, and then picked another point to dive back into the fray. This area was moving faster, more like a march should/does. We continued with the flow until it reached the back of the White House lawn/park area. That was the unofficial/official ending point for the march.
We then hiked off to the second closest metro stop, figuring the closest would be packed full of people, actually did make it onto the next train out of the city, and went to find dinner. Dinner was fun (yay food and hydration!) and consisted of dissecting what we thought of today and laying out hopes and fears for the future, as well as random conversation. The restaurant was full of people who had come from the march.
The energy was good today. It was hopeful, even if the underlying cause was despair and fear. It was angry and full of fight, but also friendly and community oriented.
One of the interesting things that my friend noted was that 75% of the people marching today were women. So at one point we were offering oreos to strangers and they were offering us hand sanitizer in return. Have a headache? Three people offer you granola bars, water, and Advil. The people out there marching today were the ones who have been conditioned by society to plan for normal and emergencies, to pack the food and the bandaids, to be friendly and polite, to help each other -- and that doesn't go away even when we're upset and afraid and angry. We can remind each other how to keep community even during the trials and tribulations of the future.
Another comment that someone else made was: how many people out there today hadn't voted? Were they now scared enough to vote next time? My response was actually that if you don't think voting matters you're unlikely to think marching matters either. But even so, maybe the day and the energy will make then vote next time and stand up more often.
I hope that no one gets complacent. Just listening to the Press Secretary talk today was scary -- it's some propoganda bullshit. I hope we can take the energy from the march and use it to do good and halt the very real darkness that is eating away at our edges. I hope people realize that the march is a start and not an end in and of itself.
And I hope Congress sits up and takes notice that we're out there and we're visible and we're not going to go away. So they better reign in their bullshit because they're up for reelection in two years.
Here are some pictures from today:
The people in the picture below are dressed like a wall and have chained themselves together. They were singing and chanting various things.
And here's the Battle Buddies before we broke up:
