What Love Looks Like

Yesterday I had the incredible honor of participating in the Women’s March on Washington with my seventeen-year-old daughter, Emily. We started out from Virginia in a packed Metro train. Two stations later there wasn’t room for another person to get on (according to Metro officials there were 1,001,613 trips yesterday!). The platforms were filled with hundreds of people, a sea of bright pink hats, who cheered, clapped, and waved us on as we pulled out of the station without them. They waited for the next train or possibly the next, happy to be part of a movement celebrating not just women, but justice, dignity, freedom, peace, and love for all.

Men and women came from all across our country, representing all races, sexual orientations, and religions. Their ages ranged from 1 to 92 (more or less). They marched, they spoke, they listened, they ate granola bars, they laughed, and many carried signs, some of them funny, others raunchy, many thought provoking.

America Ferrera kicked off the speeches rallying us to stand together for “the lives and dignity of any and all of our communities”. Gloria Steinem reminded us that the Constitution begins with “We the people,” and Michael Moore followed up by empowering us to make our voices heard. He had us all repeating “202-225-3121”, the phone number to call our Senators and Representatives. Alicia Keys encouraged us to “All rise!” and Madonna had everyone cheering “We choose love!” echoing Van Jones’s appeal: “When it gets harder to love, let’s love harder.” Six-year-old Sophie Cruz gave my favorite speech of the day. She told us in both English and Spanish that, “We are here together making a chain of love to protect our families.”

There were people marching for women and for the black community, the Muslim community, the LGBT community, immigrants, DACA students, and to save our beautiful planet earth. We marched because we believe everyone from every community deserves respect and to have his or her rights protected, including the right to a clean and healthy environment.

The chant I heard most yesterday was, “This is what democracy looks like.” I think Van Jones said it better. Yesterday’s March is what love looks like.