The Color of Protest isn’t Pink Anymore

I attended the very first protest of my life last weekend, the NO KINGS day of community. While I thought it was a first for me, in retrospect it wasn’t.

As the only girl in a house filled with the energy and needs of 4 boys, I have protested plenty. Especially over pink. While I appreciate pink sunsets, pink flowers, and pink cheeks, I still refuse to wear pink clothing.  

My mother tried.

I protested dance lessons. Here is where my friends laugh, those who know my tallness and angular way of ambulating. One of them once said if I was a horse I would have been shot, so crooked is my walk. Ballet was supposed to fix that, but I protested by hiding on Saturday mornings just long enough to be too late.

I’ve protested fashion in so many ways and for so many years that I never did learn how to dress for an occasion unless that occasion was a celebration of blue jeans, sweatshirts, and tennies or boots.

A few years ago, I began showing my dog Parker at dog shows. I wasn’t worried. I had seen the movie “Best in Show” and observed that dog show fashion was just as twisted and awkward at those events as it was in the dressing rooms of my young adult life. My subsequent purchases of “nice clothes” in which to present my (truly) very nice dog to dog show judges has continued to prove the point.

But Saturday, June 14th,  billed as “No Kings Day” to protest the cruel and authoritarian nationwide policies of our current American president and his bench of sycophantic lackies et al, was a day that changed me. I told friends I could not stay home, not now.

My generation didn’t have the Korean or Viet Nam war. We didn’t have Watergate. My generation has had the easiest, most prolific and bountiful life of any generation any of us can think of.  Until now.

We gathered in Owen Park, the same park I spent hours in one day during my college years trying to corral my roommate’s lunatic Great Dane, Heidi after she stole a loaf of bread from the counter and ran out the open door to the street. Half a block away was the park. The bandshell was still there, but on the day of the protest there was no joyful Great Dane standing there inhaling a loaf of bread. Instead, a woman from Indivisible, her words into the microphone welcoming all, encouraging us to greet one another, and to come forward and gather, and to remember we were all among friends, even though we may not know each other’s name. Her words reminded us that peace and community were the goals for the day.

She thanked all Republicans who had the courage and heart to attend, and the entire park erupted into cheers and applause. As I looked around, I saw a nice-looking man standing alone, crisp clothing and neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair. He was holding up a small, handwritten cardboard sign. “Republicans against Trump.” I stepped closer, touched his shoulder. He turned and I stuck out my hand to shake his. The crowd of several thousand people was still cheering, even louder now. “We need them!” shouted the lady with the microphone. “We need everyone!”

He and I shook hands, and then we hugged. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you,” he replied. And then we walked with the crowd of thousands, he with his sign, me with my flag.

This is what democracy looks like.