Bead 2: Women's March

Laurie B. on the megaphone at the Oakhurst Women's March.  Photo courtesy of Wendy Fisher.

As soon as I heard about the Women's March on Washington movement, I knew I had no choice.  I was a woman; I was deeply disturbed by the voices and views our nation had legitimized with the election of Donald Trump.  Therefore, January 21 would find me on my feet.

At first, I considered attending the D.C. march.  My son and I would be visiting my mom in the D.C. area for Christmas, after all, and it was only--well, more than 3 weeks later.  Scratch the overstaying our welcome plan.  I briefly considered the possibility of booking a second flight to D.C. for the march, but the thought of all that bouncing back and forth between the same two places made me feel slightly concussed, and I dispensed with the idea.

Early on, my California march options were looking like all the big cities--San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Sacramento, Los Angeles.  All except the L.A. march were essentially within striking range of me, and tolerable.  I assumed I'd go to San Jose, near where my grandmother lives, and maybe persuade her to come along.  But lurking in the back of my head the whole time was the notion of a local march, a down-home Sierra foothills march for my neighbors and me.  Who would organize such a march?  I worried the answer was nobody. 

So, I toyed with the answer being me.  What would that look like?  Would I get 20 people?  Fifty?  How few was too few, the point beneath which you shouldn't publicly demonstrate because it would suggest your cause wasn't valid?  Or was there no minimum threshold?  What if I wound up being an Army of One?  How would the public view me (or us, if I happened to find a few fellow marchers)?  The Yosemite tourists might be into it; I've always assumed National Park goers are bluer than average.  But what of the good, and decidedly red, people of Oakhurst?  I lobbed these musings around in my head for a couple of weeks, all the while suspecting I would end up in San Jose.  

And then one day, driving through the Central Valley with a coworker on our way to a job site, I happened to bring it up.  I don't know why I did it.  At the time, I wasn't sure it would resonate with her.  Wendy and I are politically like-minded, but just because you occupy the same end of the spectrum doesn't mean you're both about to become activists.  But it did resonate--and beyond that, Wendy had an idea for how to make it happen.

Courtesy of Wendy, I became a member of a private Facebook group, Oakhurst Area for Peace, that had evidently been established for the express purpose of organizing a local Women's March--only now the group's founder, Susan, would be flying to D.C. for the big one.  It felt weirdly scary, posting for the first time to the group's page that I was considering putting on an Oakhurst march, and would anyone possibly be interested in attending?  It was official.  I'd gone public.  I couldn't back out now, or I'd be a flake.   

People were interested, and Susan offered to help me organize, notwithstanding her own plans to actually march on Washington.  It was mid-December.  There was a little over a month to prepare.  I met Susan for coffee, and loved her immediately, her quiet presence, her authenticity.  We made a to-do list:  Facebook event page, press release, talk to the cops.  I think that was the whole list at that point, and I remember already thinking that sounded like a lot, a real stretch.  But I was in.

By the time the march actually rolled around, the list had swelled to include 1) posting the event to our community's online calendar, 2) posting the event to the website linking all the so-called sister marches, 3) printing off and distributing dozens of flyers, 4) notifying every local liberal lady I could think of, 5) posting regular updates on our group's Facebook page, 6) checking the weather obsessively as soon as January 21 appeared in the 10-day forecast, 7) researching sign slogans, chants, and protest songs, 8) shopping for a sign-making party to be held at my office the morning of the march,  and--once I realized I'd have more than the 50 marchers I'd conjured up in my wildest dreams--buying 9) a megaphone, and 10) special event insurance.

For the march had gone mildly viral, at least by small-town standards, with over 200 online RSVPs as of January 20.  Every day I got emails from would-be marchers, asking for more details, offering help.  Some mentioned their hometowns, and the march began to look like a many-stranded web weirdly converging in Oakhurst, where nothing ever happens.  There were 7-mile strands from Coarsegold, 18-mile strands from North Fork, 27-mile strands from Mariposa, 52-mile strands from El Portal.  Initially it looked like there might be Valley strands:  46 miles from Fresno, 60 miles from Sanger, 90 miles from Visalia.  But as the larger march movement went for-real viral, the Valley started organizing its own events, and most of those strands curled in to rally close to home.

I didn't sleep much the last few nights before the march.  Three nights out, I went to bed rehearsing what I might say into the megaphone.  What does one say into a megaphone?  Do I need to give a rousing speech?  Scream with my fist held high?  Repeatedly holler "I can't hear you!"?  None of those things sounded like me.  I just wasn't a megaphone kind of person.  That day, I had invited my friend Laurie B. to share crowd-revving duty with me.  She is a professional musician, and presumably no longer subject to stage fright.  We'd talked it over on the phone, and she was happy to get involved.  But still, trying to fall asleep, words kept floating around in my head, bumping into each other, vanishing and sparking back into view.  "Welcome, everyone..." "So happy to be here with you..." "Let me tell you why I march..."

The night before, it was mostly the weather that kept me up.  Our march was coinciding with a winter storm.  Winter storms are relatively rare in our neck of California, and a big deal.  This one promised only an inch or two of snow at my house, but I am a white-knuckled snow driver, and envisioned a 30-mph drive all the way to town.  At higher elevations, the snow could be a show-stopper.  In Oakhurst, it was forecast to fall primarily as rain, but resisting in the rain might not be what people decided to do with their Saturday mornings. 

Naturally, I woke before the alarm.  The first order of business was to look outside and make sure my road was passable to one such as me.  It was.  Second, get moving.

My road, just after dawn on March morning.

 

In town, I put up a few signs to guide non-locals to the Oakhurst Community Park, where we would be gathering.  I made a big run on donuts.  I reported to my office, where I scurried around in a fever of print jobs, coffee prep, and last-minute Google queries.  People arrived for the sign-making party, brimming with energy, bearing road reports and craft supplies.  And we got started.

Sign-making party in action.  Photo courtesy of Wendy Fisher.

I had planned to leave the sign-making party well ahead of the march start time, around 9:30, to welcome those few go-getters who might show up at the park early.  But as all who know me will attest, I'm on a perpetual 15-minute delay, minimum.  So it was 9:45 before I headed out, my co-leader Laurie B. and friend Marcia in tow.

The parking lot was chaos.  It looked like a school drop-off zone.  There were people milling around everywhere, chatting, tucking kids into strollers.  There were signs and pink pussy hats, and only a handful of parking spaces left.  I pulled in grinning like a crazy lady, bowled over by the turnout.  The 200 RSVPs hadn't been something I felt like I could get attached to, what with the weather and advent of sister marches in the Valley.  And yet, it seemed, here they were.  I ran around welcoming people, probably appearing to them like one of those exuberant souls who habitually approach strangers, usually for purposes of bearing witness.

Today, I was a witness--not for Jesus Christ, but for the resistance.  Strange, a time when the resistance is the majority rather than the fringe.  As of Inauguration Day, only 40 percent of the country approved of the man taking the Oath.  It wasn't that the remaining 60 percent were out here marching per se, but they certainly weren't happy with our nation's apparent trajectory.  I didn't promote my march as a protest, but it was undeniable that Trump's impending presidency gave it breath.  If Clinton had been elected, we wouldn't be worried about losing our reproductive freedom.  If Clinton had been elected, we wouldn't fear the erosion of our civil rights.  If Clinton had been elected, we wouldn't be losing our health insurance.  If Clinton had been elected, we wouldn't be facing irreversible environmental damage.  And if Bernie had been elected--well, that's a soapbox for another day.

In promoting the march, I had suggested that people bring signs bearing positive messages--what we can do, what we will fight for, who we will protect.  We might all be nasty women inside, but here in rural America, I felt it was most effective to frame our gathering as a demonstration of collective strength rather than collective anger.  Moreover, I felt a positive approach would be more inspiring--to me personally, ideally for my fellow marchers, and most ideally of all, for the community at large.

Greeting dozens of sign-holders at the park, it seemed that most had taken my suggestion to heart.  Build Bridges, Not Walls.  Straight But Not Narrow.  Human Rights Are Not An Option.  Healthcare For All.  Respect the Earth, Promote Diversity.  Peace.  There were also a few references to tiny hands and comb-overs, and a skilled rendering of Donald Trump eating the earth.  It was just the right amount of seasoning for the stew.

Gathering at the park at the start of the march.  Photo courtesy of Wendy Fisher.

Three days earlier, I had fretted to Laurie B. over the phone that I didn't know how to lead a march.  She had wisely responded that there would be so much energy there, so much power in the group, that I wouldn't need to worry about saying the right things, or sticking to a program.  The march would happen organically.  The group would lead itself.

Laurie was right.  The march unfolded just as it was supposed to, owned by everyone.  We tested out the megaphone, delivered welcomes.  We observed a global minute of silence, intended to unite all of the people marching around the world, and those who wanted to march, but weren't able to.  A sheriff's deputy made some public safety announcements, which I relayed.  A new friend of mine, Karen, read a poem she'd finished writing just that morning.  Her voice was strong and impassioned over the megaphone, the words thumping like shoe soles on pavement, like a heartbeat, like fists.  From today / We move / We move mountains / And we move the hearts of all of God's creatures / We move the world / And the world, also, / Moves us.  It became the march's invocation.

Marching along Road 426 in Oakhurst.

Our march route was very short, just one-third of a mile from the Oakhurst Community Park to a prominent intersection on Highway 41.  There isn't a lot of contiguous sidewalk in Oakhurst, and so the options were limited as to where to move a bunch of people safely.  For the backbone of the march, I chose a relatively quiet road with no sidewalk, where we could occupy the entire right lane in a big, cohesive blob.  From there, we marched along a sidewalk on a main road, ending at that road's intersection with Highway 41, where the sidewalk fans out into a large public corner with a small amphitheater.

Tamara in song.  Photo courtesy of Bill Klemens.

At the corner, our march became a stationary demonstration.  We waved our signs at the passing traffic, sang and chanted along with whomever was on megaphone duty, and cheered at every approbatory horn honk or peace sign we received from drivers-by.  One of our number, Tamara, was a trained vocalist, and treated us to beautiful renditions of This Land is Your Land and What the World Needs Now over the megaphone. Another marcher delivered Amazing Grace, complete with an improvised, secular verse about love.  My friend Gracie led us in a chanted reminder, Somos todos inmigrantes, that "we are all immigrants."  Later, we chanted Si, se puede, "yes we can."

Our demonstration on the corner, as viewed from across Highway 41.  Photo courtesy of Bill Klemens.

Highway 41 is the southern thoroughfare to Yosemite, and despite the weather, cars streamed continually past.  There were a few obvious naysayers; I remember one southbound truck that sped away from the intersection with a middle finger held aloft from the driver's side.  The middle finger stayed up until the truck was out of view.  Another truck driver gunned his engine menacingly as he departed the intersection.  But those guys were in the minority.

Certainly, there were onlookers who quietly disagreed with our message; for example, an op-ed writer in our local newspaper, who described idling at the stoplight, marveling that our merry band of resisters "hadn't even given the new president a single day before they attack his positions."  Although the writer appreciated the Oakhurst marchers' acting "responsibly and politely in their display of civic involvement," he questioned our commitment to human rights.  For example, he speculated that, because we presumably live in homes with fences and doors that lock, we might not be as comfortable with open borders as our signs suggested.  Ah, well.  He's only human.

There along Highway 41, on that drippy Saturday, we were buoyed up by many, many travelers smiling and calling out of car windows, beeping their approval, waving and whooping at us.  The ratio was staggering; for every angry redneck, we had 15 or 20 carloads that showed support.  On the other hand, perhaps this is what happens when you are expressing a mainstream set of values, as I believe we were.

A carload of fans.  Photo courtesy of Bill Klemens.

After about an hour at the intersection, marchers began to trickle away in small numbers.  In the spirit of this ever-evolving event owned by all, I consulted with several others, and we decided to finish strong, all as a group, and march back to the park together.  Tamara sang us one last song, a benediction of sorts.  Then, as I led the procession back down the sidewalk, Tamara moved fluidly into chant mode:  The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated.  Love, Not Hate, Makes America Great.  We yelled from our hearts the whole way home.

Oakhurst Women's March.  Photo courtesy of Bill Klemens.

One of the last megaphone messages of the day was given by Tim, Susan's husband and another founding member of Oakhurst Area for Peace.  He urged all of us to remember that this was only Day One.  We couldn't let our momentum fade after the march.  We had to plug all the spirit we'd shown today into action.  Make phone calls.  Write letters.  Attend public events put on by our elected representatives.  In just a few days, for example, there would be an opportunity to meet with a staff member of Congressman Tom McClintock, the Republican who was supposed to be representing our interests in Washington.  We had to show up; we had to make the line go out the door.

For me, and my weekly action project, the Oakhurst Women's March is quite literally just the beginning.  Bead Two means there are fifty more to go.  This particular bead may well be the biggest of the year; it required a full month of preparation, and has occupied a lot of my time in its aftermath, too.  I couldn't do this for every bead, and still go to work and be a mom, partner, and friend.  But I'm glad it worked out this way.  I went hard off the starting block, and for that I've been rewarded with a veritable Big Bang of collective energy--201 people, the march's official count, gathered together in density of purpose, now scattered in action.  I'm proud to be one of them.