tavie.com

Firstly: Kirsten took her ailing computer into the shop today, leaving us with a computer-free household. I can check my email from my phone, but it's hell to reply to, so I'll have to suffer until the weekend. Thank dood-ness for computer labs.

Secondly: I wanted to talk about the March for Women's Lives, but then erin went and did a much better job of it. She even posted her photojournal, which is quite wonderful. I'm glad she included a picture of my favourite protester. Great-grandpas for choice!

I guess all I have to add is that it was amazing. It was my first protest of any kind, and it turned out to be the largest in US history (despite what CNN deigned to report.) And you could really tell. My best moments were actually very private-- not the chanting and the waving and the shouting, but the moments when I stepped back and just took in how many people were around me that shared my ideals (wow, I have ideals?) and my hopes for this country (go figure, I have hopes!). Pretty powerful stuff, personally. Sure I have a voice. I used it and everything.

When we marched past the quiet and not-so-quiet rows of anti-abortion protesters lining the streets to protest our protesting, some of it was a little daunting. I was called "evil"; we were called "murderers" and "Jezebels". (The last one we embraced with great glee.) The signs ranged from disturbing (the standard this-is-what-an-aborted-fetus-looks-like) to hilarious (Jesus, O Jesus, mourning for his lost, murderous little lambs!). What I found was best was to look each one of them in the eye as I passed. Almost none of them could hold my gaze. Their eyes all slid away. Mine never did. One woman did hold my gaze, and as I looked back at her as I passed, she shouted, "God bless you! God bless you!" And I thought that was fine. I don't mind being prayed for, even if I find the reasoning behind it offensive. Gina, however, hollered at them to pray for the soldiers in Iraq instead, and I also thought that was a good way to respond.

The day was physically exhausting, but I came away from it with that high like the one I felt at my first real concert (Barenaked Ladies, New Year's Eve, 1996); that communitas, that sense from being surrounded by people that I could, at least for that moment, and completely unironically, consider sisters and brothers. I have a soft spot for that sort of thinking.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:43 PM | shower me with attention