Waiting for the Vermonter at Union Station in Washington, D.C. early Sunday morning, April 23, my seven-year-old daughter Annika and I chat up a couple from Greenfield, Mass.
Annika and I had just taken our second Uber ride ever to get to the station, used the restroom where many of the stalls were being occupied longterm by homeless women, and stocked up on snacks at the convenience mart.
The couple, both teachers, have, like us, made the pilgrimage to D.C. to attend the March for Science. All of us are bleary-eyed from the early awakening, but also feisty; perhaps this is a protester's hangover.
We share our favorite signs and give thanks to one another for the various efforts made to participate. They contemplate what will be on their signs for the upcoming Climate Change March on April 29; they will be attending in Greenfield. We all agree that protesting, rallying, and marching could easily become a full-time job.
As the train leaves Union Station and we leave the beautiful city of D.C. behind, images of the marble monuments, bronze statue tributes, and engraved poetic words of wisdom I saw over the last few days come into my mind.
For someone with eyes adjusted to Chester, Vt., these were truly days of stimulus overload: Everywhere you turn, there is something to read, some immortalized figure to see.
Even the walls of the escalator tunnel that descend to the Metro at Dupont Circle are engraved with Walt Whitman's words as testament to the horrors of the U.S. Civil War.
These words will be recited for centuries. Can a simple protest sign with rain-smeared letters hold even a fraction of this power? What will the words engraved on the building blocks of the memorials of our time say? Who will our generation immortalize in bronze?
* * *
The train makes a few stops, and then, at the Baltimore Station, Annika's best friend from Chester boards our car. It's a surprise to us - I had known they were going to Baltimore, but had no knowledge of their travel plans - and the coincidence is amazing.
I'm relieved from the work of entertaining my child for what turns out to be an 11{1/2}-hour train ride. I jump across the aisle to sit with a young woman so Annika and her friend can be together.
The woman is on her way back to New Haven, Conn., where she goes to school at Yale.
Over the next several hours, we have sporadic brief conversations. She is studying for a dual masters of business and social science. She asks about our trip, I tell her, and she responds, “I'm not very political, but a few of my friends went to the March.”
I imagine that as a young academic woman, she's more political than she realizes, but I keep this thought to myself.
* * *
Recently, I attended a lecture by Dr. Alan Betts, a leading climate scientist, organized by The Nature Museum at Newsbank in Chester.
Dr. Betts mentioned that one critique of the March for Science is that science should not be made political. His response to this critique is that science is either responded to or ignored by public policy; therefore, science cannot be separated from politics.
After the lecture, I chatted with some of my Nature Museum friends about the lecture. One said that Dr. Betts spoke here four years ago and his talk wasn't nearly as political then as the talk he gave on this night.
Dr. Betts hadn't held back this time. Clearly, something had changed within him, and my guess is that it's a sense of urgency.
Like Dr. Betts, it's getting harder for me to shut up.
I, too, have a vision of how the human story vs. science and climate change will unfold. I don't mean exactly what will come to pass as far as quantifiable degrees of temperature increase or inches of sea level rise.
I mean the acceptance of the truth of it all and the fact that climate change is really happening.
* * *
A sign at the march reads, “The so-called experts are experts.” Another says, “Science doesn't care what you believe.” Science is fact. Period.
Terry Tempest Williams writes, “Climate Change deniers will soon disappear like the zealots who proclaimed the Earth was flat and the center of the universe.”
It's simply inevitable.
On the train ride down to D.C., I am reminded how children have a special magical effect on adults. Sitting across from us is a father-daughter pair from Littleton, N.H. The daughter is roughly my age, and the man, dressed in plaid, resembles Santa with a New England twist.
He quickly starts to call himself Annika's “Train Grandpa.” He asks us where we are going, to which Annika replies enthusiastically, “The March for Science in D.C.!”
I then explain what the March for Science is - he had not heard of it. Shutting up is not an option at this point. It's obvious that we are coming from different political backgrounds, so I try my best to tread lightly.
We all chat for a bit, and a few hours later, he treats Annika to a pack of peanut M&Ms from the food car. Annika spends the next hour coloring her Train Grandpa a striking thank-you picture of lily pads, koi, and iris in a Monet-esque style. He says he'll put it on his fridge when he gets home, and I believe him.
* * *
While in D.C., we join forces with my friend from my graduate school days in Michigan and her two young daughters (ages 6 and 1). Together, the five of us travel on the backs of the generous. Someone pulls us into the March for Science rally security check point as we passed by, though clearly not in line, and suddenly we've unintentionally avoided the two-hour, half-mile-long wait to get in.
A man parts the sea of humanity on the Metro after the march so that our crew and stroller can get through. An Uber driver is patient with my Uber ignorance. A friend-of-a-friend whom I've never met offers up her beautiful townhouse for three nights.
I must admit our experiences were shaded by the fact that two moms with three young kids attempting to participate in a large demonstration are granted many passes, but it still takes effort for the generosity to flow.
Actions like these made all the difference, and I am so grateful.
Annika and I also travel on the backs of the encouraging, and for that I am even more grateful. My husband said to us, “Have fun!,” not “Be safe!,” as we departed from home.
Perhaps he knew it would have taken a lot to stop me and didn't want to state the obvious, so he chose these words. But they are words he has said to me many times before when I have embarked on my various adventures - adventures like backpacking the Long Trail for several days with a girl friend.
It's more likely that he knows the importance of these missions and simply wants me to have a good time. It's amazing what a supportive partner can do for you.
It's also amazing just how long a train ride can be. A local friend when she learned we were taking the train to D.C. said, “Oh, you are taking the slow train down? You'll want to get out and jog!”
Hour eight on an Amtrak train during the most beautiful spring day is a certain kind of suffering for a 33-year-old adult who likes to jog. Being a little kid standing in the cold rain all day holding a protest sign is another.
* * *
During the pre-march rally, it is rather miserable. The rain is relentless and there is no cover. We had prepared for the rain, but there after a point the cold has begun setting into our hands and feet.
My friend and I managed to keep our spirits up, but the two older kids had started to voice their complaints. The baby has it best; she was snuggled into a stroller with a trash bag pulled up to her armpits.
She is grinning at the lady with the goofy hat covered in pathogens that vaccines have all but eliminated. The back her suit coat read, “Let's eradicate some more diseases! Fund Research!”
It's in moments like these I try my best as a parent to resist the urge to dive into a monologue about what real suffering is - like being sickened with an incurable disease - to shake my kids out of their whininess. But they don't have the perspective yet, so there isn't much point.
Instead, after some increased complaining, we exit the rally and get some hot pizza at a nearby food truck. Instantly, spirits were lifted.
Yes, maybe we are teaching our kids that when the going gets tough, the tough get hot pizza. But maybe we are teaching them that when there is a good reason to stick it out, you might have to suffer for a time, that you can be proactive about trying to ease the pain, but eventually the suffering will pass and you will be better for the having had the experience.
Sometimes I think we don't suffer enough as a society and we've lost our collective perspective and memory. Suffering is a conduit in which we can remember history (i.e. what it was like before vaccines) and deepen our gratitude.
Thank you, pizza truck; because of you, we are making it to march time. Thank you, scientists; it's because of you I never had smallpox.
* * *
We run into Train Grandpa and his daughter on the Vermonter on the way home - another train coincidence. He asks us how the march was.
Annika, dressed in black leggings covered in peace signs and a T-shirt that says “Free to Be Me” (both a birthday present from her grandma/my mother), gives her full report and makes me show him pictures on my phone.
He seems genuinely interested and impressed. If activism and ideology can be passed down generation to generation, I wonder, can it also be contagious?
* * *
As we near New York City Penn Station, I notice a man across the aisle and behind me. He is making no effort to move his bag from the empty seat next to him or clean up the lunch he spilled all over the floor despite the loud voice over the intercom saying that the train is sold out and to make empty seats available. It is in such contrast to the many acts of goodness I witnessed during the last few days.
The train is now getting close to the Vermont border, and I have that feeling that always settles over me upon returning to this beautiful state that I am so fortunate to call home.
It's a feeling marked by relief - my God, I am so glad I don't live in a big city! - and also by familiarity. I am so grateful to live in a place that feels like home to me and to leave a seemingly neverending mass of humanity, concrete, and waste to which a train ride through New York City on to D.C. bears witness.
It's been a smooth life-road for me so far, and I recognize the gift of privilege that being a white, educated, middle-class woman has afforded me. Because of this, I have a responsibility to make myself vulnerable at times.
I must leave my familiar comforts behind, travel to a big city on a slow train, fill my eyes with humanity, and figure out Uber at 10:30 p.m. I must put my Sharpie to poster board and make a sign that speaks my mind, walk in the rain, and participate in our great democracy. And I must to do it all as a mother with my child.
But what sort of tangible effect do these protests have - did this particular protest have? I am not sure that there is a simple answer.
Yet. Maybe when we look back in a year or in a decade it will be more definable. The questions Annika brings up in bed the night of the march give me some clues. I am exhausted, but she is in the depths of processing, and this very conversation we begin to have is exactly why I brought her. After all, I have an agenda.
“Mom, do you think the president saw our signs?” she asks.
“Maybe not ours, but hopefully some,” I say.
A minute passes, and then, “Mom, I really liked the lady with the big goofy hat with all the stuff on it. She was pretty cool.”
“Yeah”, I say. “Remember, she told us the things on her hat were different pathogens, like disease bugs, that we don't have to worry about anymore because of what science has given us.”
Another pause, and then, “Mom, I really want to take good care of the Earth but I still want to live in a beautiful house with space to spread out. I don't want to share a room with my brother much longer.”
“Me too. I know.” She then went on to describe her dream house. It's a flying greenhouse house with solar powered wings. When she's done, I describe how we have made choices in our house to reduce our impact on the Earth. LED lightbulbs, wood for heat, spray-foam insulation. I tell her how these are all tools we have to help the Earth and it's all thanks to scientists. She gets it and I realize a seed has been planted.
Terry Tempest Williams writes, “What becomes sacred is the act itself - not what remains. Something inexplicable is set into motion.”
For me, attending the March for Science has been a jolt out of my despair for the moment. It felt re-energizing to be with a huge moving mass of chanting geeks that share my convictions. The experiences I had have grounded me back into the work I do and my perspective is not only refreshed, but a richer, more saturated version of my truth.
Onward.