January 20th, 2018 Downtown, Los Angeles, California. 7:30 am; In a surprisingly filled metro train on a Saturday morning, I was accompanied by women from every walk of life. With handwritten posters in their hands and half asleep kids still rubbing their eyes on their laps, the subject matter was magnitude of rage we all were about to be a part of.
For me, this was all new. Super unique march signs, Anticipation of walking with strangers, power of collective voice; I was about to witness it all. 40 Minutes later, I walked into a very different DTLA. There was noise all around, but a certain calmness in whomever I came across. Upon walking 1000 feet I realized, I was going to miss the details of the speeches today, for I was one of the 500 Thousand people attending the march and occupying every inch of Pershing square.
In true honesty, even at 8am, I was late! Late to grab the front row, late to come up with a poster idea and just forget about volunteering! I kept moving step by step, very slow for two hours to finally reach a stop where I found a group of people ready to begin their march. Women on bikes, followed by more women, whom I started to follow too. Environment, women’s rights, education, healthcare reform, LGBT rights, equality, trump hate - were the images around me. I will remember this day, being a very trivial part of something so big, extremely important and infinitely courageous.