I don’t like crowds or marching around in the dark or being wet, but being at the Women’s March in San Francisco (which was taking place in the rain, in a crowd of 100,000 people and half in the dark, since it started at 3 and ended after the sun went down) was spectacularly life-giving.
First, it was the kindness that was spread around like butter on toast. My friends and I took the ferry to the march and the whole boat was filled with women, children and men in knitted pink pussy caps with feathers coming out of the ears. But it was the men who were willing to look so silly to make a point (we stand with the women) that kept making me laugh.
And it was the sheer size of the crowd, the physicality of so many people who felt so strongly about showing up that they too were happy to be mushed around in the crowd in the rain in the dark.
It was the five-year-old girl who held a sign that said, “I may be small but I’m fierce.” And the other sign that made me laugh: “I didn’t come out of your rib, you came out of my vagina.”
And this is just the beginning of what was exhilarating and for which I don’t yet have many words.
**Attached is a picture from our retreat manager, Judy Ross, who was one of the hundreds of thousands in Washington marching with the most important women in her life -- and their message? Kindness is the Answer.
