We’ll Leave The Light On
Saturday night we joined about 200 people for a NARAL-sponsored candlelight walk around Greenlake to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. Saturday seemed like an odd night to schedule these festivities, but I guess it was important to do it on the actual date of the decision. Still, it occurred to me that those who will benefit from Roe vs.Wade in the coming weeks were probably too busy engaging in the activity engendering that need to participate in our celebration on a Saturday night.
My wife mentioned that she hadn’t participated in any sort of protest march since 1969 in Pittsburgh. I don’t think I have, either, if you don’t count our attending Hempfest to hear a band we liked.
In the course of the 2.5 mile walk, we encountered a spry 70-something African American woman, a retired English professor, who shared quite a bit of her life story. She grew up in Montreal, and told how her parents at one point tried to enroll her in an all-French-speaking school, and how she’d sandbagged her interview with the Mother Superior so she’d be rejected. She described how she would craftily design her course syllabi in order to discourage “bible-beaters” who were wont to discourse about things like creationism, without having to explicitly forbid it. As we walked along at a pretty respectable pace, I asked if she read or wrote at all since she retired, and she said she was in the second draft of her memoirs, and participated in a book club on Middle Eastern literature. No moss was about to grow on this lady yet.
The tenor of the walk was extremely laid-back. I overheard a lot of earnest discussion of politics and media, but there was none of the chanting, singing or speechifying that you expect to hear at rallies in Seattle. While there’s little reason for ebullience among pro-choice folks, I wouldn’t say it was dispirited, either - just dignified, and determined. I’m hoping our absent beneficiaries will have the opportunity to light a candle and enjoy such a ruminative walk in the coming years.
