"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
- Barbara Bush, 3/18/03

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may day may day

posted 1 May 06 & filed under

last night i couldn’t get to sleep and i kept remembering past may days – like four years ago when i wore a favorite handmade dress of mine and marched in the streets with friends and three years ago when i moved into this much loved apartment. i remember it all like yesterday. sometimes, very often, the past seems more real and nearer to me than the present – and though that’s not a good thing in many ways, today, right now, it makes me feel lucky.

for those of you that don’t listen, or don’t know about democracy now!, now would be a good time to listen to it, or watch it. it’s a radio-turned-tv show and it’s just excellent. it’s pacifica’s best, really the only program i listen to anymore and i’m proud to have helped and worked with democracy now! during my time at pacifica. anyhow, check it out, i don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

for the first time in years, i’m off to a march – i went to the tail-end of one a few weeks ago with some new friends and though i was nervous of seeing people i don’t really want to see, it was great being there, in that atmosphere of possible change and hope for the future. today, i’m going alone, hoping the turnout is amazing and that the voices and goals of the marchers are heard.

years ago, when i used to go to demonstrations on a pretty regular basis, i had friends to go with. i’ll miss them – and have been missing them – a lot, but i lost them, so today will be bittersweet.

sorry if i’m making no sense ~ in short, happy may day, happy day of solidarity and workers’ struggle for justice. this country we live in is screwed up on so many levels, change must happen. i’m afraid of what will most definitely happen if it doesn’t.

~ andrea

p.s. i’m very late on emails and responding to comments – i’ll try to catch up in the next few days. thanks.

just realized the times are off in the image – taken from the l.a. times website. the first march is at noon, not 11 am, and the second at 3, not 4 pm. argh.

Comments

Andrea, I went to the march here in Chicago. 400,000 people. It was truly amazing. I kept crying because, for me, it demonstrates everything that is right about America. People standing up for their rights, the idea of inclusion, peaceful demonstration, the right to be heard. (I’m a little sentimental.) I stood on the curb and cheered for about an hour and a half. It was hard to go back to work. I can’t tell you how many people made a point to catch my eye and smile at me or said thank you or shook my hand just because I was out there cheering with them. I saw people in wheelchairs, old people, people carrying their kids, tons of strollers, a old man with a limp so bad I don’t know how he was able to walk let alone walk miles, young men, young women. All of them smiling and cheering. I’m about to cry again. Seriously. And I’m babbling. Especially since, you already get it since you went. I hope your time was as wonderful as mine.

~ Collette (May 1, 07:23 PM#)

i really admire you for going to the march. please tell us how it went.

~ meowgirl (May 2, 11:13 PM#)