Better Late than Never: A Random Visual Diary of the Seattle Womxn’s March

Like most of the country—indeed, most of the world—I’ve been watching every aspect of the car accident in slow motion that is the ascension of Donald Trump. Pardon the hyperbole, but we’re past the point of clown car analogies in the context of the boorish, morally ugly, hateful, willfully ignorant man behind the wheel. The car’s a tank, metaphorically and literally. And the administration members that pack the interior of the vehicle, actualizing Trump’s alternative truths and corrosive rhetoric, are wearing jackboots, not oversized clown shoes.

There’s a lot to be vigilant and angry about right now, and fixing all of the damage that’s been done to civil rights, the constitution, and our standing in the world arena isn’t something that’ll magically happen with a single protest march.  I know that.

But a couple of weeks ago, somewhere between 130,000 and 200,000 (depending on your source) good friends decided to stand up to the tide of administrative ugliness and let their voices be heard at the Seattle Womxn’s March. The variety of those voices—a cross-section of every race, creed, color, and sexual orientation—was staggering. Most of them were female.

I couldn’t avoid scribbling in my dog-eared yellow notepad and pushing my wheezing old iPhone 5S to battery depletion as I walked the Seattle Womxn’s March. I was a fly on the wall, not a journalist, that day, so these are completely subjective impressions and moments that struck me as I marched—colored by memory and emotion, random but indelible. I’m not gonna even pretend to represent any of the voices speaking out that day, except for mine. But it felt important for me to get the sounds and sights I experienced out somehow, just so I could remember those mental snapshots (and revisit some physical ones).

On a practical level, I realize I should’ve committed this to posterity a couple of weeks ago when it was still ‘hot’. But I’ll be honest: The ensuing days, with their constant succession of alternately blood-boiling and horrifying news, have been pummeling me upside the head and kicking me in the gut, depleting much of my energy, nearly overshadowing the Seattle Womxn’s March and pushing it into the realm of dusty memory. But I kept coming back to the random things I saw and heard at the march, to remind me of what happened, and of how important and special it was. And we all need to tap back into that as much as possible for the long haul.

Seattle Womxn’s March, Saturday January 21, 2017

9:06 A.M.
I catch the packed downtown-bound E line at 46th and Aurora. At least 1/4 of the passengers are wearing pink pussy hats. Everyone’s giving widely polite berth to the signs and banners brandished by several of the bus’s occupants. A 70-something woman en route to the march—sweet, smiling, and as traditional a grandmotherly figure as you’ll see—laughs as the bus absorbs an especially large quantity of pink pussy hats, protest signs, and mostly female human beings at 3rd and Bell. “I bet there’ll be a lot of men making their own dinner tonight,” she says. Her comment sticks with me, because as the current national climate has proven, it’s not nearly as anachronistic as it should be.

10:10 A.M

The eastbound 554 transfer stops at the Rainier Highway bus stop, about a mile away from Judkins Park. Steady streams of people walk towards Judkins for as far as the eye can see in most directions.

Given the sick gravity of Donald Trump’s ascension, I’m a little surprised that the mood isn’t more apocalyptic. Then again, maybe I’m not. The feeling of intimidation and dread that the Orange Hatesicle’s worked so strenuously to engender melts amidst the sheer number of smiling yet determined people that soon fill the park. Everyone’s in good spirits and purposeful, like neighbors about to help rebuild a fellow neighbor’s damaged house after a natural disaster.

There’s plenty of signage on display at the park. Some of it’s emblazoned with familiar catchphrases: “This pussy has claws,” “Nasty Women Unite!”, etc. Other signs are less familiar, and corrosively (even coarsely) clever: A larger-than-life Trump gets walloped by Lady Liberty as he attempts to grope her. One guy brandishes a sign sporting Trump and Putin in a passionate lip-lock, with the words, “Who’s the Top?” floating above both politicians’ heads. It’s the kind of crowd where one woman uses the word ‘puerility’ in her sign (it’s what the P in TRUMP stands for).

Several speakers take to a podium at the park’s east end. The crush of humanity’s too dense for me to get within eyeshot, but the words and the voices of the women speaking ring loud and clear. The potently life-(and woman-) affirming words from Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise,” are read by actress Lindsay Zae Summers. State Senator Rebecca Saldana, Native American activist Colleen Echohawk, and American Muslim Empowerment Project Executive Director Aneelah Afzali take to the mic to deliver speeches passionately drawing attention to their individual causes, without detracting from the overarching one that’s inspired this massive turnout. Northwest/Hawaii Planned Parenthood CEO Chris Charbonneau offers determined resolve against the current administration’s hostile attacks on her organization. The words these women deliver are impassioned yet clear, laser-focused, and resolutely hopeful.

The music nerd in me zeroes in on the songs playing over loudspeakers as we stream out of Judkins and onto the street. Black-haired punk girls bang their heads ferociously as X Ray Spex’s “O Bondage, Up Yours!” pounds through the air. Poly Styrene’s tribal yelp sounds, now more than ever, like punk rock’s greatest feminist call to action.

Tracy Chapman’s dark-syrup alto voice pulses away on “Give Me One Reason”, and a large group of women to my right begin dancing. When the pre-recorded music ceases, singer Bernadette Bascom serenades marchers with powerfully-sung gospel hymns. The unity and energy in the air give all the aphorisms about love trumping hate and pussies having claws full-flowered and urgent vitality.

Almost right on cue, the clouds burn off, leaving a clarion blue sky with faint wisps of white clouds along the skyline when the music finishes. The day becomes so warm, several people pull layers of jackets and sweaters off. The sun gets so bright and intense, I shield the back of my neck from the heat and rue having left my shades at home.

Mother Nature can be a mistress of faultlessly-timed symbolism sometimes.

11:40 A.M.

It takes a good two hours to get just a few blocks, from Judkins Park to about 20th and Lane Ave S. It’s a prolonged crawl, but not one person around me seems the least bit impatient or touchy. “This is moving slower than dial-up internet,” a millennial Asian-American kid with perfect cheekbones quips with a laugh. He’s joking, not grumbling. Two college-age women begin singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” like kids around a campfire, and soon about a dozen of us are joining in.

It occurs to me that this particular revolution will be Tweeted, Selfied, and Facebooked at least as much as it’ll be televised. The millennials and kids in this throng are seeing to that. They’re having fun immortalizing this, while still being completely engaged.

Over the course of those two hours, a lesbian couple begins giving a running tally of the estimated number of marchers. I’m not sure where they’re getting the information, as my phone’s bereft of an internet connection at that particular moment. But 30 minutes into the crawl, they announce that news sources put the preliminary number of Seattle marchers at 50,000.

Several younger girls of all ethnicities walk amongst the crowd, alert and open-eyed. One girl, a pre-teen with licorice-black long hair and Indian features, climbs up one of the trees in this south Seattle neighborhood to get a better view of the crowd. She gets high enough to have some difficulty getting down.

In a gesture of probably-antiquated chivalry, I hold out my hand and offer an assist. She doesn’t hear me, and soon her friend, another pre-teen girl, helps her shimmy safely from the tree anyway. Sisters don’t need me or any dude: They’re doing it for themselves.

Later, the taller half of the lesbian couple in front of me announces that the estimated total of marchers is now around 100,000. Everyone in immediate earshot loses their shit like a pack of football fans after a winning touchdown.

Waves of boisterous whooping surge through the crowd periodically as we slowly move forward. The blasts of positive noise are loud enough to rattle my chest.

1:35 P.M.

Once the streets widen and the marchers pour onto 4th Ave S, the slight downhill incline gives me my first full-on panoramic look at the March. I have literally never seen this many human beings in one place in my life. The overwhelming feeling that we’re all in an epic movie during some pivotal plot shift begins to surface in my head. To a great degree, we really are.

It’s at about this point when the metaphoric movie’s requisite soft-focus flashbacks—specifically in the context of where we are now, and where I was a little over a year ago—kick in. At 2015’s halfway mark I was viewing the world through a decidedly naive romantic lens; gainfully employed, happy, and complacently convinced that the notion of Donald Trump staging a stubby-fingered grope at the brass ring was nothing more than a little wet fart of a joke.

By the time 2016 stomped roughshod over the country I’d spent ten of the last sixteen months unemployed; lost one of my best friends to cancer; saw several childhood heroes die; had the emotional rug pulled out from under me by depression and personal loss; and saw a hate-mongering former reality-show huckster voted into office.

I wasn’t the only one who had a shit year, of course. A lot of folks had it much worse. But for me and a lot of other people, it felt like 2016 was the year that the world had turned truly, cruelly incomprehensible and alien.

Fortunately, the extra-resonant notion of being in the middle of something bigger than any one person’s problems—something special and inspiring, even as we’re all staring into a genuinely terrifying abyss—quickly snaps me out of the soft-focus. Navel-gazing over. Back to the here and now.

1:57 P.M.

The march accelerates, with the sheer numbers carpeting the street thoroughly amidst more chants. To my right a bearded, slender artist who’s been wearing a giant papier-mâché Trump head for several blocks has stopped on the sidewalk and pulled off the outsized, prune-faced noggin. Kids are giggling as they try it on and pose for selfies.

This march has been overwhelmingly peaceful so far. Some have said, not without validity, that it’s because of the robust number of white people amongst the protesters. I’d like to think (at risk of generalizing) it’s also because it’s organized and driven by women, most of whom are used to having to work harder and persevere stronger than most men. Women possess the resilience to routinely endure menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, rampant sexism, inferior pay, and every other sling and arrow of patriarchy, while still getting shit done. Gee, imagine what it’d be like if one was running the country right now.

2:20 P.M.

The sheer number of people wallops me again as 4th Ave S becomes 4th Ave. I literally see no pavement as I take in the view. It’s all human beings, with a huge preponderance of pink hats bobbing at the surface like brightly-colored nautical buoys. People shimmy up street lights to view the insanely overwhelming numbers on either side of the street.

At around 4th and Seneca I see the first (and from my experience, only) figures of conflicting purpose. A small outpost of Evangelicals, sporting a stark black banner with white lettering promising certain damnation to non-believers, stands wanly on the sidewalk. Maybe other marchers noticed them at some point today, but the entire time they’re in my sight, and when I pass them, they’re roundly ignored and completely unnoticed.

2:53 P.M.

We’ve just hit Belltown. The Cinerama, its distinctive vertical signage towering above the street, is surrounded by rivers of people. The crush of humanity outside is so massive it’d defy even the expanse of the 70 mm movie screen inside the building.

More signs bob and weave and stick out at varying points. Appropriately enough, Star Wars references to the Evil Empire surface frequently and amusingly. But it’s one woman’s straightforward raiment that hits especially hard. It’s strictly Trump quotes, laminated and pinned all over her clothes. All about women. All repugnant.

A few blocks more, and I look to my right. A compact, cherubic Asian woman somewhere in her 30’s is looking at the constant stream of bodies moving past her. Tears are streaming down her face. “This is so beautiful,” she says. She looks at me and smiles warmly. Her boyfriend, a massive guy with close-cropped silver and black hair, smiles at me, too. I’m overcome by the emotion emanating from this woman, and I hug her. Soon, both of us total strangers are crying on each other’s shoulders. We separate, and the two of them wave back at me affably as we tell each other to take care and be safe and strong. We may never see each other again, but right now we’re BFF’s, for God’s sake.

Another aphorism comes bursting to life from the realm of cliché: We’re all in this together.

3:20 P.M.

Seattle Center is the endpoint of the Womxn’s March. Marchers slow down and spread out, but signs are still being held aloft. People mill about the Space Needle,  talking about how transformative the experience was. Most inspiringly, they’re talking about what to do next. A soccer mom is happily schooling an enthusiastic teenage couple on giving to the ACLU, and another grandmotherly little old lady is talking to what looks like her millennial granddaughter about how to find her local senator’s phone number online. It’s the most explicit and tangible clue yet that the majority of people in this 100,000-person mass are energized and in it for the long haul.

One teenage girl, brown-haired and bookish like a pussy-hat-wearing Velma from Scooby-Doo, enthuses about how she can’t wait to turn 18 so she can vote in the mid-term elections. A couple in anatomically-correct vagina-shaped headgear talks to a young African-American man who’s interviewing them about how they made their costumes.

I walk through the Center campus, distracted at Fisher Pavilion by the Vietnamese Cultural Festival taking place there. It’s festive and vividly alive. Performers clad in Vietnamese lion and dragon costumes romp in front of the Pavilion as percussion assaults my ears. Fireworks go off, and the nose-stinging scent of discharged gunpowder fills the air.

I duck inside to charge my long-depleted cell phone, and lean against a pillar taking it all in. Women and a few men in traditional Vietnamese ao di glide by, sylphlike. A small squadron of traditionally-dressed children dances on the pavilion stage. It’s utterly immersive, and incredibly life-affirming, to be here as a bystander.

Another cliché kicks around in my skull, and like so many of the others I’ve lived over the last several hours, it’s given weight and tangible reality by what I’ve seen, and by what’s going on in front of me.

This is what America looks like.