This is What Democracy Looks Like!

Hello friends, thank you for stopping by to view my latest creative project: a pictorial about the 2nd Annual Women’s March. When I first heard about the march taking place on Saturday, January 21st in Eugene, Oregon I was honestly concerned. I mean, I knew I was going to be there, but would everyone else who participated last year show up too? Was this really a movement or a just one-off deal, spurred by the widespread anger regarding our just-then-official president-elect? On the Indivisible Eugene Facebook page, only 33 people had registered for the 2018 march. A handful more were “interested” but wasn’t Facebook where life, like, happened now? I mean, if only 33 people said they were going, what was this march going to look like? Indivisible Eugene was one of the main organizers of the event, so where was all the hype?

Nevertheless I registered and I vowed to go. I texted all my local gal-pals and they seemed stoked about it too. Many of them were planning on going already…Facebook confirmation or not.

The day of the event I had a massive head cold but, motivated by the march, which was such a powerful experience for me last year, I put on my hiking boots, grabbed my camera, and met my gal-pals at Laughing Planet Cafe a few blocks from the march.

Laughing Planet has the best virgin hot toddys, I was pleased to discover.

Waiting for my friends, and hoping they would forgive me for arriving sick and contagious (we will see), I spotted my first other march-goer…who just happened to be male. “Not just a women’s march, but a men’s march too,” I’d stated a few days early on my Facebook page. I worried that the language “Women’s March” dis-included some men, men who didn’t realize what this march is: effectively an anti-Trump, pro-women, Peace Protest. Nothing to be afraid of.

A young man grabbing a bite to eat solo before the Women’s March.

Arriving at the Women’s March it was clear that wayyyy more than 33 people felt passionate about women’s issues, freedom of speech, the DREAM Act, and other current political, economic and social issues. The crowds extended from the Whole Food’s parking lot to the complete other side of the courthouse, and even up our main street bisecting town–a major thorough-way. The place was humming with a sobering yet optimistic energy. “This is why I come to these things,” I thought, as my headcold drifted to the background and I became engrossed in the scene unfolding before me. The first thing I noticed, right away, was the number of children and men compared with last year.