An Energizing Weekend!

I haven't felt this energized about social and political issues in quite a while. This weekend, that of the inauguration of President Trump, helped to bring out that fire in me. Friday, my friend and neighbor Rosa went to a woman's home in the Lowry neighborhood to stuff bags with toiletries and snacks for the homeless. I saw it posted on Nextdoor and thought it would be a great way to commemorate Obama leaving office and Trump stepping in. We weren't sure what we were getting into…it could have been a group cheering on the inauguration or it could have been an act of defiance by not watching the inauguration. Lucky for us, it was the latter. Over 25 women-and a few men-met in this woman's home and we stuffed over 300 bags of donated items-toiletries, food, grocery gift cards, socks,  etc. to be given to two homeless shelters and handed out at Civic Center Park for the men who don't go into the shelter system. These women were mostly over the age of 50, with their own fiery stance on social justice and human rights, many of them having been a part of the social and political movements of the 1960's. We got to work, and stuffed bags, filled cars, drove them to where they needed to be. Rosa and I took all the recycling as our part since we have the big bins at our condo.

Friday night Wayne, Rosa and Mary came over to make our marching signs and eat dinner. Mary decided to join us last minute, and we had fun thinking of all the slogans. We wanted to keep things upbeat and positive, so we came up with some good signs that represented how we all were feeling. We ate a potluck style dinner and talked up until 10pm. We listened to Joan Baez and other musicians who sang revolutionary music back in the 60's. The next morning, we met early and took an extremely crowded bus, full of marchers, to Civic Center Park. It was a massive crowd of people, and it was hard to know where to go, but just being a part of it all was worth the two hours of standing or walking very slowly. We ended the day with coffee at the library and took the bus back home. So many people I knew attended it felt good to be a part of something that felt like it really mattered, despite what the naysayers are prone to think!