West Hartford resident Sally Wallace Lynch traveled to Washington, DC, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, to participate in the Women’s March on Washington. She submitted the following perspective, which first appeared on Jan. 22, 2017, on her blog ‘Almonds & Elephants.’

By Sally Wallace Lynch

Yesterday I decided that all news is “fake” news.

I spent the day in DC with hundreds of thousands of colorful and beautiful people, a vibe of kindness and generosity, yet the media chose to focus on crude and dangerous comments from Madonna and Ashley Judd. Oh, I get it. Madonna probably couldn’t resist the opportunity to inflame, and Ashley Judd just let her raw roar. As women, there is a lot of raw and a lot of roar so going unleashed feels mighty good sometimes. I learned yesterday, however, that the media will report what it chooses will get the most clicks and ratings.

Our feminine power comes with responsibility, ladies. We need to wield it with dignity and grace. Otherwise, our message falls on deaf ears and we get relegated to histrionics and “emotional warfare” this world refuses to take seriously.

So here’s my “news” take on yesterday because it’s the only “real” news I can offer.

I traveled to DC on a crowded bus that left at 2 a.m. Saturday morning from Trinity College in Hartford. Leading our charge was our bus captain, Sarah Raskin, a combination of intelligent, organized, patient and kind that I can’t even describe or begin to understand. Susan King, her co-captain, was also there sacrificing her time and energy to make sure people were safe and comfortable. They did everything from passing around food, beverages, and buttons to collecting tips for Nelson, our bus driver. Our little bus microcosm consisted of women and men, young and old, different cultures. You might say, a slice of West Hartford/Hartford.

Multiply our bus by the 1,200 or more other buses pouring into RFK Stadium on Saturday morning and you’ve got the march. Rather than give you a blow-by-blow of my day, I’ll talk about two things that struck me.

The shortage of places to pee. Let’s face it, this came as no surprise, but power plays took place over where and how to pee. For one, we could see hundreds of port-o-potties lined up around the Capitol, all cordoned off and protected by police. Like water to a person dying of thirst, those potties taunted us. We stood and begged the cops to let us pee. Nope. Not your potty, Ma’am. These were for the Trump Inauguration. I get it. Maybe we needed to be a bit more generous than 1 potty per 10,000 women, but it forced some of us to get creative (what happens in DC stays in DC). It also awakened some men, like my husband, who couldn’t resist the urge to start his own chant on our behalf. “Our bladder, our choice!”

On the flip side of the armed men protecting the Inaugural potties from the begging women, there was the incidence at Union Station. I ran to the restrooms only to find, yet again, an hour or longer wait for the Women’s Room. I glanced over to the Men’s Room line. About half as long. So I jumped over with women cheering me on, “Join the Movement!” They laughed because there were no men in line, and we all do crazy things when we gotta go. Then a beautiful thing happened. A man showed up and walked right to the front of the line. He had no idea there was a line of women waiting to pee. He looked up so confused, and actually started walking back to the end of the line. All the women laughed and pushed him forward. It was his bathroom, after all.

That moment, for me, encapsulated the sentiment of the entire march. Needing to express our needs and push the envelope a little, but doing it in a way not to exclude others. We fight for our rights, but always with grace and dignity. By nature, we are inclusive beings.

White men speak up. As we walked towards the march, the energy was vibrating high with chanting, singing, cheering. The whoops and hollers of solidarity would come in waves, starting from God knows where and rippling like a baseball spectator wave across the crowd, giving me chills as I walked through such an energetic and considerate crowd. People handed out posters and we grabbed them. One poster read, “Women Are Perfect,” and depicted a young black woman on the front. Later, as we waited for half our group to use the bathroom, our friend, Mike, stood with this sign as the marchers marched by. The response shocked even me. Women stopped to take his picture. Black women, in particular, stopped to hug him and call him their “new best friend.” He was stunned.

I said, “How many middle-aged white men do you see holding a sign affirming women and a black woman at that?”

In that moment, our own perspectives broadened.

Tim commented, “That makes me sad, actually.” How could we live in a world where there is such a lack of affirmation for WOMEN that a sign would elicit such a reaction?

Well, we do.

And that’s why this march was so powerful. Because half the world is female. And half the world goes unheard, unrecognized.

Women, no matter what their political leanings, are women. Women are amazing. Women want to be heard. Women are the foundation of society. Women need to be empowered. Women are the bedrock.

This march lifted women up.

The political agendas seemed different for everyone. 

But that thread of commonality – hear the female voice – wove deep within this massive crowd, which is what made it so peaceful and successful across the globe.

We boarded the “Love Train” from Union Station to RFK (that’s what the riders smashed in there like sardines called it), and headed back to the bus. Thousands of pink-hatted women flowed to their buses like vibrant blood through the arteries of an ailing human body, revived and invigorated for the future.

I expect this to be the beginning of a new era for all women and men, including those who sit at a different political table because what happened yesterday is way more powerful than politics.

What happened is Life at its core.

So, thank you, Donald Trump, for pissing us off just enough to remind us who we are, and where we need to go from here.

We will speak now.

Sally Wallace Lynch is a West Hartford resident and mother of three teenaged daughters. She has a bachelor’s degree in nutritional biochemistry from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree in nutrition. She served with the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea, worked at the United Nations, has certificates from Hartford Seminary and the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy, and currently works as a functional medical consultant at Designs for Health. She is the author of a blog entitled “Almonds & Elephants,” where the above post first appeared. It has been published with her permission. To read more of Lynch’s writing, click here.

The following is reprinted from the “Welcome” section of Almonds & Elephants: “Little girls are born into a world of Viagra and Super Bowls, and spend the first half of our lives trying to figure it out. Scratching our heads, we navigate our cultures being good daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. Wearing many hats and playing many roles, we do Life.
 
“Then we hit 50 and the storm that has been brewing inside of us, the one beyond the role of good daughter, sister, wife and mother, starts to rage. We know we are beyond these roles. Our heartache burrows deeply alongside our scars, as profound as war wounds, because we have dared to love. Courageous, we have cried rivers. Our power lies less in our biceps and more in the act of being vulnerable, and allowing others the space to do the same.

“Almonds & Elephants is that space for us to gather and do Life in a vulnerable and empowering way. Designed to Empower & Inspire, we will help each other burst through the road blocks in our path, be it disease or abuse or job stress, so we can blaze our trail with the magnificent light the world desperately needs.
 
“Join me…
“Join the Herd…”

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