Like we all breathed a little life back into each other, or something.
EVERYONE was mellow and peaceful and glad to have the company. And so much company, too! The aerial shots were astonishing! And L.A. is L.A. Not three feet away from me, I saw Dakota Johnson keeping pace with the slow crawl of the rest of us, talking with a couple of friends, taking in the sights and enjoying the vibe.
I realized after attending another march - the March for Science a few months later - that these things are actually slow-moving art galleries. The creativity on those hand-crafted protest signs was something else altogether! All you did, all day, was look and watch and observe and notice and admire and smile or even laugh with delight. The costumes. The accessorizings. The random groupings. The wit! So much wit on display - everywhere! I couldn't believe how imaginative it all was! Thousands of different artistic statements and projections and pronouncements. By the end of it, you'd lost track of which ones were your favorites. There were literally dozens of them. I do remember one excruciatingly great one some woman drew - "We're Not OVARY-Acting!" - with a clean line cartoon-type drawing of the female reproductive system. The t-shirts, the hats, once you got yourself a hand-knitted or crocheted pussy hat, you suddenly realized there were also hand-knitted/crocheted brain hats, too, and you had to have one of those as well! One of my takeaways from both marches was "DAYUM, how clever people are!" One was on visual overload most of the day.
And the cops were something else. Relaxed and laid back as you'd expect L.A.-anything to be. Draped across the handlebars of their motorcycles, leaning up against their cop cars and nearby walls. Just sort of taking it all in, and, I suspect, enjoying it very much. We weren't there to make any trouble. I could imagine some of them thinking "THIS is work?" to themselves. Or maybe "if you have to do crowd control on a beach weekend, too bad it can't always be like this. Nothin' to it!" Or undoubtedly "wait'll I tell my wife who I saw..."
And it was damn comforting and reassuring - to see how many people there were, out there, all of one mind. Especially the day after trump's "inauguration*". We literally were all in this together and we were reveling in it. Sure made you feel as though you were not alone. Anything but alone! It was a demonstration of solidarity like I've never seen - even more than at the Iraq War protests I attended - or the Vietnam protests I can recall. AMAZING and quite reaffirming to see proof of just how many other people had your back.
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