Women’s March on Washington: A Self-Portrait
/[Author’s note: Some names have been changed.]
The day after the presidential election, I went to a funeral. Jimena, the grandmother of two of my cousins, had died. She was eighty-four, and a citizen, but in the 1950s, she was a young mother of two small girls in Cuba. In 1958, her husband left for the United States. Jimena stayed behind, waiting with her daughters, while a revolution ballooned around them—for a year. Finally, in 1959, Jimena took her girls and escaped, joining her husband in Florida. At the funeral home, her grandchildren, half Cuban, the other half German and Hungarian, like me, stood near her casket and cried. I hugged them—but because I still thought about the night before, I doubted my ability to comfort them. I hugged them harder.
Afterwards, I fell in line, navigating my car in the long procession to the church. Our hazard lights flashed, each rear-view mirror holding a neon yellow funeral card. We slipped through intersections. I relaxed in the driver’s seat, indulging in the relief of ceremony. At the lane to the Holy Infant Church, there was only the banality of parking. I walked with my parents through the rain, entering the church behind the altar. I sat in a pew next to my mother, behind my cousins. Crossing one leg over the other, my hands folded in my lap, I remembered the packages of Lifesavers Jimena gave me, every Christmas Eve of my childhood. I looked forward to the priest’s and my cousin Ryan’s eulogizing of Jimena, a kind and brave woman.
I waited, but it never came. In the priest’s homily and Ryan’s eulogy, there was no mention of Jimena’s courage. No acknowledgment of the daring necessary to flee her home, once familiar and safe, to another— foreign and with a flood of new immigrants, possibly hostile. They made no allusion to what it must have been like to seek asylum with hope but no possessions. The priest said what a doting grandmother she was. My cousin said how much she loved and supported her husband. The men told only part of her story. They edited out the brave part.
If I were a more acquiescing woman, I might have been content to sit, stand, sing as directed—but I am not always faithful to rules. Instead of praying, my hands made a clandestine pass by my handbag, more accurately described as a piece of luggage. I withdrew my comfort objects: a small red Moleskine notebook and a black felt-tip pen. I sensed my mother’s lips purse. While the priest recited a prayer, and swung purifying, sanctifying smoke—incense from a golden thurible—to lift the congregation’s prayers to the heavens, I wrote my own:
I want to be surrounded by women.
When Jimena’s husband, Inocencio, stood behind the flower-laden casket, about to guide it down the aisle, I had a vision. I was on my back in the churchyard, resisting the cold ground and its sterile landscape of boxwood, instead—I absorbed the thurible’s purpose: I levitated into the clouds. When the priest said, “The Body of Christ. . . “I heard, “My body, bodies of women, floating.” I’m not one for having visions. So, I did what writers do, I wrote the vision to see what I thought. We stood to sing. Placing my small red notebook inside my open hymnal, I read what I wrote and thought, Maybe I should see a neurologist.
My mother tugged my arm—time to go, follow the casket outside to the cloudy sky. My family left the pew and entered the aisle but before I moved, I had another vision. In this one, I stopped the service, strode to the altar, faced the congregation, and with my hands on my hips, told Jimena’s story.
I drove home after the service disappointed in my heaviness—in my selfishness. I had hoped the church service would help me feel lighter, a quick recovery from the night before. The funeral, the church service— hadn’t helped. I felt worse. I had only thought of Jimena to defend her and my unrealized rebellion in the church felt like a betrayal of my own convictions. Jimena’s story was incomplete, and I had failed. It felt like feminism was dead and that I had helped kill it.
“When I became aware of the Women’s March, I knew I would go even though I had never participated in any political action other than voting. I preferred my politics early in the morning from the distance of the kitchen TV to the counter where I ate my eggs. I could not explain the urgency.”
When I became aware of the Women’s March, I knew I would go even though I had never participated in any political action other than voting. I preferred my politics early in the morning from the distance of the kitchen TV to the counter where I ate my eggs. I could not explain the urgency. It was only yes. It was like several of the urgent yeses in my life. Like the yes when I was newly married, confident in the preference to wait several years before becoming a mother, then holding a friend’s newborn, and hearing my body say yes. The way I have stood outside of a building and known I would live there. My kids, my parents, asked me why I was going. Why would I want to sit on a bus with strangers, march in cold weather, and ride home—completely awake for twenty-four hours? “I’m going to write about it,” I told them. Which was ridiculous. I’m not a journalist. I bought the bus ticket, the requisite clear backpack, a Metro SmarTrip card and the official Women’s March t-shirt, all without a clear understand of this particular yes.
A week before the March, I contacted Kim. I barely knew her, but she was going to the March and lives near me. I offered to drive us to Trinity College in Hartford, where we would catch one of thousands of D.C.-bound busses at one o’clock in the morning the day after the inauguration. “Yes!” she said. “I am hoping you are also okay with me sticking with you once we arrive in D.C. You’ll be the only one I know.” She was motivated to march, she went on to say, because as a teacher, she was concerned about education. Social media concerned her, too. In the two months since the election, she was having a hard time being calm online—it was like the Wild West, and she wanted to saddle up. We heard from other local acquaintances, Dot, Cris, and Jamie—they were marching for the environment, for reproductive rights, for deeply personal reasons. Something gelled.
Two days before the March, I spoke to a friend and said, “I’m going to D.C. to march, but what I really want is to talk to the women on the bus. I want to know why they’re marching.” My proclamation came out in a rush. I thought back to what I wrote at the funeral, the prayer I wrote to Heaven: I want to be surrounded by women. Heaven answered: Women on a bus. The women on the bus were alive. They could recite their stories—their reasons for marching, and I could record them—if only to inform me of my own.
At 1:15 AM on January 21st, Kim and I boarded Skedaddle bus #6661 and were greeted by a woman who announced herself as, “Doreen, your Bus Captain.” The Captain handed me a cookie from a large Tupperware container. “We’re so glad you’re with us!” She spread her arms wide and the women onboard cheered. For a moment, I thought of walking backward off the bus. I hoped we wouldn’t be having sing-a-longs. I’m an introvert who has forced herself to be an extrovert. I’ve done the Myers-Briggs test. But, with a line of women behind me, and not wanting to abandon Kim, I popped the cookie in my mouth, and lead us to a pair of seats in the center. Instead of sitting in my window seat, I kneeled on it, and addressed the woman directly behind me. Her hair was short, naturally curly, and very neat. She was wearing all black.
“Hi! I’m a writer. Do you mind telling me why you’re marching?”
She looked at me sideways. There was the hint of a wry smile. Clearly, I imagined her thinking, not a journalist. I tried again. “I’m hoping that by talking to women on the bus it will become clear to me why I am marching.”
“Ah, well,” she said. Her eyes softened. “I’ve always been an activist. This is what I do. I’ve protested nuclear plants, nuclear weapons, damage to the environment.” She waved a dismissive hand.
“What else do you do, besides political activism?”
“I teach it.”
This was not going as planned. I sat in front of a professional. I needed women with everyday lives more like mine. Someone who didn’t look like she belonged, not a professor of political science in blend-in black, sensible shoes, and no jewelry, who was prepared to spend a night in the slammer. I scanned the bus for anyone else in a faux leather cropped jacket, red skinny jeans, tall black boots, official shirt with three women’s profiles in silhouette, and a child-like clear backpack with a tuna wrap sandwich, facial cloths, Motrin, several Gala apples, and a thousand bobby pins for an awkwardly growing-out pixie haircut. I didn’t see any. There were only the backs of women’s heads, wrapped in homemade pink knit kitten ear hats. They clung in pairs whispering to each other. I sat down.
The door to the bus closed, the interior lights dimmed, and as we pulled away, Bus Captain Doreen addressed its congregants, “The Fourteenth Dalai Lama said, “Be kind to each other!” Then she said the bathroom wasn’t working. Inexplicably, there was another round of cheers accompanied by clapping. We sped off in the dark toward interstate 91 surrounded by softness: the seats, the pussy hats, the cookies. Stowed above our heads were bottles of water, handmade signs, ambient light. I dozed but woke at familiar exits: New Haven where my babies were born, West Haven, where I went to college, New Jersey, rest stops.
“Now that Trump is president, it’s time to set our clocks back 300 years.”
At 6AM we were gliding through Maryland when I saw the sign for Towson. I have cousins there who voted for Trump. I glanced at Kim. She was asleep but the woman in front of her was awake. I thrust my face in the space between the awake woman’s seat and that of the woman next to her sleeping with her head against the window. “Hi,” I said, little red notebook open, pen ready. “I’m curious, have you ever marched before?” She twisted at the waist and surprised me by answering. “Hey,” she said. “Lisa. I’ve never marched. But over the years, I would see pictures of rallies for causes I felt passionately about, and wished I’d been there.” She continued, encouraged by my rapid nodding. “For years, women have been disenfranchised—I don’t like the idea of anyone being left out.” We discussed Trump’s misogynist, xenophobic, and racist rhetoric. Then Lisa addressed her drowsy seat partner, “Did you see that post on Facebook? Now that Trump is president, it’s time to set our clocks back 300 years.”
We pulled into RFK stadium, parked beneath a Metro overpass, and Kim’s phone lit up. “Dot, Cris, and Jaime are here—they want to meet.” It was a relief to stand. It was orderly. Politeness, civility—that unstoppable duo, met us in the parking lot as a never-ending train of busses unloaded. Everyone spoke in hushed voices. It took us twenty minutes to find our Connecticut acquaintances. Through the parking lot came a ripple: Metro trains were speeding past stops—they couldn’t admit those waiting on the platforms, the trains were full. Yet, hundreds of people were still standing in line to buy Metro cards. Jaime hadn’t bought a SmarTrip card in advance. The five of us formed a circle and made a pact: we would stay together all day. We didn’t take a photo. We didn’t stop at the pizza truck with no line. We didn’t use our SmarTrip Metro cards. We walked.
The rally spot was near the Capitol—two miles away. We were meant to join the Connecticut contingent of marchers, attend the rally at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Southwest Third Street at 10 AM, and at 1:15 PM march—all together, hundreds of us amidst the thousands, down the National Mall to The Ellipse, a public park. Between 2 PM and 5 PM, Connecticut marchers were invited to Rayburn House where we would meet Connecticut organizers, and have a proper meal before re-boarding the bus for home. That was the plan. Almost immediately, the plan began to unravel.
I am a planner. My life’s goal is to be prepared for any eventuality. My clothes do not hang in the closet, they stand at attention. I have an online calendar, a paper calendar, and a hierarchal system for sticky notes. One of my first memories is organizing my mother’s magazines by size. I was three. As Kim, Dot, Cris, Jamie, and I walked out of RFK and stepped onto East Capitol Street NE, we saw throngs of women entering from side streets, tributaries feeding the marching river. Residents of the townhouses lining the street came outside, stood on small porches, postage-stamped-sized front yards and clapped. The closer we go to the Capitol, the tighter we were. Signs that had been held down, in front of bodies, were hoisted high in the air. An African-American man passed us, riding his bike, from the other direction. His hands were on the handlebars, both the olive-green field jacket he wore unbuttoned, and the American flag he attached to his seat waving as he peddled, “You should be proud of yourselves!” It took us two hours to get to the rally point.
The rally point was a bottleneck. We could hear the rally presenters from loud speakers, but we were behind the stage. “No more room,” said a female police officer. But she gave us a tip—head up the street, take a left, and circumnavigate the crowd. Dot led us, “Hold on to my backpack,” she told me. I told the others and linked, we went upstream—against the current, but when we got to the cross-street to turn left, we were stunned. There was no place to go. We got to a cement wall and climbed on top.
“As far as the eye could see, and in every direction—women. There were women of every color on top of walls with blowhorns, on the sidewalks with babies in strollers, on the street marching. There were several young women in trees.”
As far as the eye could see, and in every direction—women. There were women of every color on top of walls with blowhorns, on the sidewalks with babies in strollers, on the street marching. There were several young women in trees. My friends and I looked at each other. “Let’s join in,” one of us said. We were swept away. I never ate my sandwich. The day’s plan evaporated. We went with the crowd. “Where is the March?” we heard someone in the crowd say, and we laughed and threw our voices into the mix. I had been there to record, be there—but observe at a mental distance. Instead, I heard myself chanting: “Human rights are women’s rights!” “Tell me what democracy looks like—This is what democracy looks like!” “What do we want? Equal rights! When do we want it—now!” Some young men on top of a parked van, “Her body, her choice!” they called. “My body, my choice!” we responded. Several sets of young parents with their toddlers. Three toddler girls held signs. The youngest with a sign drawn in crayon, “I Can Be President,” it read.
When the lightness came, I didn’t expect it—certainly not at four o’clock in the afternoon, my feet tired, my eyes dusty from hardly blinking, (I hadn’t wanted to miss anything). For once in my life, I didn’t care where I was going. I felt safe, protected, elevated, moving en masse in praise of inclusion. Road led to road led to five hundred thousand peaceful people. Unified voices and a unified message. Dot, Cris, Kim, Jamie, and I decided to head toward Rayburn House, we turned east and joined a crowd singing, “Lean on Me.” I am unique in my family: I don’t cry at Hallmark commercials—but I cried now.
Hours later, just fifteen minutes before our bus was scheduled to depart—Kim and I boarded. It was only then that I realized I had left my little red notebook on my seat. I picked it up and let Kim have the window. I sat and stretched my legs into the aisle. The bus pulled away, and Kim fell almost immediately asleep. I opened my notebook and tried to get down everything that happened. When I read the fragments now, they feel like complete stories: Jamie hugging the woman she gave away her sign to, just because the woman said she loved it. Me giving five dollars to an elegantly dressed woman—one dollar for each one of us who used the bathroom at her Baptist church. Falling into a restaurant when Rayburn House was at maximum capacity. Ordering the only thing left in the kitchen: grilled cheese and tomato soup. Innumerable kindnesses. Big tip in the restaurant. The best gin and tonic, ever. Rushing to make the bus while Metro police clapped and calling out to us, “You made history today, ladies!” And knowing we had.
Across the aisle, a man and a woman spoke to each other in an accent I couldn’t place. I inquired. “Hebrew,” the woman said and introduced herself as Michel. I picked up where I left off in the morning, I asked her why she marched. Michel picked up her knitting. “I thought there was no hope.”
We talked about what we had seen all day: college-aged women with bullhorns, the presence of very young girls. I watched Michel knitting and thought about my heavy prayer in the church two months prior and my emotional resurrection at the height of today’s physical discomfort. I asked Michel how she felt now, after a day of marching. She held up her knitting, “It’s a scarf,” she said. It was purple. “I feel better, but there is much work to do.” We sped towards home.
Christine Kalafus is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose. She is a visiting instructor at Westport Writers’ Workshop and lives in Connecticut’s Quiet Corner.
POSTSCRIPT: Less than a year after the March, Christine helped establish Quiet Corner Shouts, a non-partisan group focused on peaceful political protest and was a founding member of the Kitty Krew, an all-women cycling group. Then she ran for public office. There is still much work to do.
