Two Ladies Go to a Protest
Some thoughts about Boston's extraordinary Pride/No Kings parade/protest
She was an old lady. Not “older.” Old.
Small. Tiny. Birdlike. Dressed a little neater than most of the marchers and protestors. And she was holding a sign, although I can’t remember what it said. Probably something sharp and satisfying.
All I can remember is that I had just arrived at yesterday’s protest, and as I jostled into position I found myself standing next to her. We exchanged pleasantries for some reason. Then she smiled a wild smile, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “I hope they try to fuck with us.”
I mumbled something noncommittal.
I, for one, hoped no one would try to fuck with us. One of the reasons I attended the event was to protect some friends who wanted to be there. Not that I know how to protect friends against tanks, or rubber bullets, or a billy club, but I wasn’t going to leave my friends alone to fend for themselves. (And isn’t that what the whole protest was about anyway? Not leaving our friends alone to fend for themselves?)
And here was this old, old lady, ready to throw down. Right on, Grandma!
It was still early in the day when the old lady said that to me, when no one knew what to expect. But it didn’t take long to realize that we were on a different path than L.A., even if L.A. was on our minds.
Within a few minutes, it was clear to everyone that Boston was throwing itself a freedom party.
Of course it was. The No Kings protest fell on the day of a prescheduled Pride Parade, the party of all parties, so the city combined the two—No Kings and Pride—and what a lucky break.
The parade came first and all of my favorite people marched by. Artists and singers and dancers and kinksters of all kinds, and adorable little kids too, all in glitter and lycra and lace, through a rain of soap bubbles, wearing every color in the rainbow.
As the campy floats passed, each offering its own message of contempt for the current administration, the No Kings protestors cheered and danced and sang along. The campier the marchers, the louder the cheers. Then, after the last float crossed the intersection, the spectators filed in behind it and joined the march, while the remaining crowds along the route cheered from the sidewalks, the restaurants, the apartment windows.
Everyone cheered. And chanted. And waved angry signs. And danced. Everyone.
Especially the Pride marchers, who met the moment that was thrust upon them. Originally, they’d signed up to be champions of tolerance and equality and self-expression, but they ended up marching for something else yesterday. Pride was suddenly indistinguishable from the safety of immigrants (documented and undocumented), and the safety of the vulnerable abroad, and racial justice, and the importance of science, and a fragile environment.
Through an amazing act of generosity, that embattled community allowed its flag—its rainbow flag—to stand for everyone yesterday.
Maybe it always does anyway. I’m not sure what all the stripes represent, or if there’s one for me. (Is there a stripe for a Whitmanite who contains multitudes?) But it represented everyone yesterday.
And that’s how you end up with over a million people marching through a major American city with no arrests. And no violence. And no one fucking with us.
As you may know, or perceive, I’m a bit of a crier. But I didn’t tear up yesterday until the very end, just as we were entering the Common and the conclusion of the parade.
We were funneling between blue police barriers, into the narrow gates of the park, and waving at the people who were cheering us on as if we were finishing a marathon. As I scanned their faces, one woman in particular caught my eye, a middle-aged woman standing alone. Compared to the spandex and lingeried bodies that surrounded us, she was dressed relatively conservatively. In fact, she looked a lot like the old lady from the beginning of the day, the fighter, but thirty or forty years younger.
And she had a look on her face that will take me years to describe accurately, a cross between romantic ecstasy and tired relief. Peace, love, and exhaustion.
“What’s wrong?” a friend asked when he saw me start to do my John thing, my stupid tears pooling everywhere.
“Did you notice her?” I asked, wiping my nose. “It’s like she desperately needed to see all of this. Like she’s been waiting for it for a very long time.”
“Maybe she has been,” my friend replied.
And I think he was right. I think she had been waiting, maybe without knowing it. I think a lot of us had been waiting for…something. For a very long time. Without knowing it.
And yesterday we caught a glimpse of it—me, my friends, over a million marchers…and those two ladies, the fighter and the lover.
As a matter of fact, I think I’d been waiting to see them too, for a very long time.
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In this episode, I read a speech from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I also discusses the fatal flaws of tyrants and what Milton, Voltaire, Paine, George Lucas, and the Bible all share.
Well done John! Made me do my “Bob thing.”
C’mon Whitmanite!