The Women’s March

I’ve organized an anniversary event for our weekly demonstration, Signs on the Square, on Saturday, January 20. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year. I’m not sure if I can find my pussy hat, but I’ve had some help designing banners that say “Reform Congress” and I will hold a sign asking my (Republican) congressman why he’s gone 345 days without a town hall.

The Women’s March
by Philip Schultz

So many mothers are here, daughters and granddaughters.
Mine’s been dead for nineteen years but somehow
managed to come. I’m seeing her everywhere,
in the pleased-with-itself smile of the little girl
riding her father’s shoulders, holding a sign
announcing girl power and the beginning of the
Women’s Century, in the don’t-mess-with-me look
of the much-pierced young woman in black
who appears to have finally found her cadence,
in the excited green/gray eyes of the old woman
in a wheelchair being pushed along at quite a clip
by, I assume, her grandson, who looks absolutely
mesmerized. And just ahead is the forceful stride
of the black drummer banging away for all she is
and wants to be, using everything she has to make
a point about strength and willfulness and sacrifice
that maybe only women have the right to make,
having made all of us, shared themselves so completely.
A point about going too far and not far enough,
about time, and the pain it brings, and yes, here I am,
older than I ever intended to be, enjoying the ringing
in my ears, remembering being lifted into the air
by my mother, trembling with joy, as she enfolded
me into the hospitable wings of her peasant apron.
Yes, she’s here, marching with all the others, all of whom
understand what’s being asked of them, one more time.

Every Saturday for the past year it’s been one more time.

Here is the start of my letter to the editor of the local newspaper, asking everyone in the area who feels like the past year hasn’t been life as usual to come out for our demonstration this week:
How did you feel last year at this time, on the eve of the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States and the Women’s March on Washington? Apprehensive? Angry? Triumphant? And how do you feel now, after a year of legislation? Has what you were angry or triumphant about come to pass?

How about you—how do you feel now?