Momomama
84 women, 13 men and one baby are waiting impatiently beside two idling buses. Some scramble to buy a t-shirt that fits, some talk excitedly and still others shiver in the night air, wrapped in comforters, cradling pillows. Volunteers hurrying from bus to bus - loading bottles of water, bags of nuts, and boxes of fruit snacks. Finally, the bus doors swing open and the crowd divides itself into two groups, those who wish to be noisy and those who are hoping for sleep. I am on the quieter bus, and after my co-bus captain collects emergency contact information from every one and distributes our cell phone numbers, I stand up to announce our itinerary to group. We will leave this parking lot at 10pm, and drive through the night (stopping twice for breaks) to Washington, DC where we will be taking part in the March for Women’s Lives. We are the delegation from Northern Adirondack Planned Parenthood.
Within an hour, most of my fellow passengers, including my fiancé Bill, are sleeping; their bodies contorted make the most out of small bus seats. In New Jersey, we stop to switch bus drivers and, for the first time, I can see other buses on the highway with us. By the time we hit our rest stop in Maryland at 6am we are surrounded by buses. We run into one particularly sore and achey looking group; they have been riding on yellow school buses since they left Massachusetts. Now that the sky is lighter, we are all awake, drinking coffee on the sidewalk next to the bus. We watch as groups of women and men stream past us on their way into the building. Most of them are wearing t-shirts that match our own: bright pink “Stand Up For Choice!” logos splashed across chests.
We are soon back on the bus. By the time I finish giving the details of the day to the group, we are just outside of Washington. We are early, but there are already buses filling the RFK stadium parking lot to which we have been assigned. In spite of a lack of sleep, no one is grumpy. We set to work making sure everyone has a sash (bright pink satin printed with “Don’t let the Supreme Court Flip Flop on Roes: NAPP Marches for Women’s Lives”) and a flip-flop necklace to wear. Each necklace bears the name of a supporter who contributed money to send people who could not easily afford the $110 bus fare on the March. There are 43 of us who have received full or partial scholarships.
Just standing in the parking lot is an eye opener for some of us. One of our younger marchers, a high school student born more than a decade after Roe v Wade, asked me why some of the marchers wore pins with pictures of clothes hangers on them. We are handed bright pink ACLU posters, purple and yellow NARAL Pro-Choice America posters, and blue NOW posters. We join the throng waiting to board the Metro.
Bill and another Marcher lift one end of our baby marcher’s stroller going down the stairs so that his mom can avoid having to wait in the line for the elevator. Once we are on the train, we strike up a conversation with three blonds from Nebraska and two gay African-American Oberlin students. We fight our way out of the Metro, lifting the stroller again. Immediately we find a volunteer who directs us to NAPP’s assembly place on the Mall. Within an hour, our entire group has reassembled on our patch of scruffy grass.
Feminist leaders appear, one after another, on the jumbotrons which are broadcasting the action on the morning stage, which is blocks away from where we sit. The speakers – members of clergy, an anti-poverty activists, a United States senator, feminist leaders, and environmentalists are as diverse as the activists sitting on the grass next to me. The most popular t-shirt slogan (and chant) of the day proves to be, “This is what a feminist looks like.” I think of all the women and men I know: my grandmother, my mother, my best friend, my co-workers, my father, my aunts, my uncles, the man who changes my oil, and the woman who sells me my newspaper. There is someone here in this crowd that is a lot like each and every one of them.
It is a few hours before we start marching, and even then our movement is off and on. One of the Girl Scouts that joined us points out the good signs to me. Our favorites include the cardboard cut out of the president that someone has dressed in March t-shirt and the huge cloth uterus that another group has raised on poles over their heads. For a while, I am marching behind a woman whom I have seen somewhere before this day. Bill takes charge of carrying the five foot tall purple white and gold banner that reads “Northern Adirondack PP.”
Two hours after we start moving, we finally get enough space to take normal sized steps, and we can really see all the people and signs around us. There is a group of young women who have taken off their shirts and placed stickers over their nipples. A man with an empathy belly stands on the stops of a building, waving to us and brandishing a sign that reads “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” Someone nearby is drumming for us. A bunch of men in bad drag are marching as “Church Ladies for Choice” past a small crown of self-described “Raging Grannies.”
We come to a corner and are warned by a yellow sign reading, “Caution: Dangerous Fanatics Ahead.” Once we turn, we see anti-choice protesters on either side of the street. They are mostly older and young adult males, with a few women and children. They all look pained. Between us and them are police officers. We wave and cheer even louder. “This is what democracy looks like!” and “Choice! Choice!” Interspersed with the antis are pro-choice marchers, they raise their signs higher and cheer us on. When we pass by the last of the protesters, another yellow sign appears: “Now Leaving the Fanatic Zone. Maintain Freedom.”
We finish the March and collapse on the lawn in time to see Julianne Moore, Tyne Daly and Ani Difranco on the jumbotrons, which now reflect the action from the Main stage, set up in front of the Capital. Bill and I eat a day-old sandwich and potato chips. He is making plans for his next March outfit; he plans on wearing his waders and carrying a sign which says “Fly Fisherman for Choice.”
All 98 of us converge back on the buses in the stadium parking lot, exhausted and sore. At the same time, though, we are energized. As we get back on the highway the bus is buzzing with ideas and reactions and laughter. We share our favorite sights. I lament having missed the bellydancers.
One million voices for choice, all chanting, screaming, and yelling sounds like an earthquake. And I hope that eartquake made W. shake in his shoes. We marched, we laughed, we listened, we danced, we collapsed exhausted on our nation's front lawn. The 99 of us from way up here met with the 1,149,901 of them from everywhere else. This IS what feminism looks like. And also, Bill agrees, feminists are H.O.T. hot.
I am excited and jittery and can't concentrate, which must mean the March is this weekend!!!! We are hoping for a million pro-choice people to mob the Mall. Bill and I are ready with our t-shirts and out bottled water and our snacks. We plan on getting good and tired tomorrow in our kayaks so we can sleep on the bus.
It's going to be amazing. I promise. So if you can get to DC on Sunday, you better be there. And if you can't get there, I'll be carrying you in my heart. We have to show the world that we are a country that values women and their right to make choices about their families.
I've been listening to Air American Radio for a week now, and I am not sure if I like it or not. Morning Sedition has definitely grown on me, as Mark Riley, Sue Ellicott and Marc Maron find their groove. But overall it's just so...meta and self reflective. I just find it amusing that of like 15 markets around the country, we can get it here in Plattsburgh. And because of that, I will continue to listen. It's my liberal duty. I listen because I CAN!
We are also proud of
Ann Marie, who is becoming a guide dog trainer and is now blogging about it. I went with Ann Marie to Guide Dog graduation once, when we both lived closer to New York City. We got to see the dogs and their owners, and got to visit the dogs that were still learning in their kennels. It was cool.
The Alana is running the Boston Marathon today. The thing about the Alana, is that, when she decides to do something, she does it. She's going to fuck that marathon up the ass. In the best possible way. We are so proud of her.
I got my first piece of hate mail today, from an anti-choice person in response to a letter to the editor I wrote. According to the fine lady who wrote to me, my mother should have pierced MY "skull with a sharp object and aborted me". You know, because life is precious. And the Baby Jesus cries when we have abortions. And also there's no need to be compassionate sinners like me, who encourage the ladies to abort their babies! Thanks, ma'am. I needed that, especially when I am trying to fix the high speed copier!
Bill's been planning on getting a loan with which we can build an addition onto our lodge (The Bunkhouse), redo the bathroom, and finish refinishing the rooms. He applied for a small business loan and last night he found out that he did not get it. Because the Bunkhouse, as a business, has a negative cash flow. Right. And we need the loan to fix it up so we can charge more and advertise and make a positive cash flow. So this catch 22 has him stressed out, because he was planning to have it when he bought all new windows in the fall. And new siding. And spent money on unfreezing the pipes. On his credit card. Sigh. The Bunkhouse is a money pit.
We are now talking about mortgaging the camp to pay off those credit cards, finish all the current work, and finish paying for the Bunkhouse. Which means that having out own house is eons away. And we want to have kids so badly (him even more than me) and we have no place to put them. At least when they are little babies we can stick them in a bureau drawer.
This weekend I bought a kayak. I can't wait to try it out after it is delivered. I could have used it yesterday when Bill and went fishing in Lake Champlain, but we took the canoe instead. We paddled around trolling for a few hours and then embarked on our weekly bird watching drive. We saw mjy favorite bird - an Osprey, and America's bird, a Bald Eagle. Then we ate lots of ham.
Today I had my first ever radio interview...for North Country Public Radio. (Only fitting that NPR should be my first...) It's not the first time I've been on NPR, however. If you are ever listening to A Prairie Home Companion repeats and the show from Austin featuring Tish Hinojosa and the Derailers is playing, listen for my laugh during the monologue. I am so totally famous.
Saturday was the first day that Bill and I have been able to spend the whole day together since I moved in, so we went bird watching. We spotted 26 species, which seemed impressive to me, but apparently that's just a poor show for birders. Our last stop was a state park with a rocky beach on Lake Champlain. I decided to start skipping the stones. I ended up failing miserably, until Bill gave me a quick lesson. After that, I quickly established my own style. Bill likes to get the biggest stone he can find and makes to jump over long distances until it plops heavily into the water. I was busy perfecting my technique, in which the small, flat stone just skims the water, bouncing twenty times over a short distance before gently floating to the bottom. I refer to this as "tickling the water." I am very serious about my dainty technique. But why, then is my figgin' arm and shoulder STILL sore?
In other news, we greatly improved our neighborhood when we removed the old sofa with the broken leg from our porch. I hope the townspeople don't think we are getting all hoity-toity.
My big fat Greek lunch nearly made me explode. Bill took me out, and after he braved my office for the first time, he made me brave the appetizer section of the menu. Delicious, but I was overzealous in my consumption.
