They asked the group chat if anyone was going.
S would go early, then band practice. M needed to fend off a cold and would watch from the hill next to the Fairyland sign. H was offered a fake $100 bill to leave the downtown Oakland protest. K was on a plane heading east, said they saw the Philly protest from the air. E was waving a Palestinian flag in LA. A sent a photo of her mom’s protest sign: a monarch butterfly. H and I found our places with the clown family and the lobster and the guitar-toting college students on the Crescent Lawn at the edge of the Berkeley Campus. Cars honking, people cheering.
Hours later, driving north to meet F’s new baby, we saw them on the pedestrian bridge over the highway, the lobster too. There were critiques online, I heard. But what about what Ivy said at Bathers, at that meeting after the election? What about taking up our public spaces, what about being together, what about spreading information, what about building some hope? And then keep going.