What the Women’s March Gave Me: Peace & Knitting

On January 21, 2017, the largest inauguration protest happened in the United States, and I got to be a tiny part of it.

I’m so grateful.

I’m so grateful that knitting helped knock me out of my denial, the “this isn’t happening” inauguration funk, and made me feel like I could do something. Two weeks before the inauguration I realized I better get knitting if wanted to be a part of the Pussy Hat Project. I went to my yarn stash, and as someone who isn’t really a fan of pink, was happy to discover that I did have pink yarn. It was leftover from my grandmother’s stash. Suddenly the hat took on new meaning.

I asked my dad if Grandma Vicky talked politics. He couldn’t think of an example, but he did remind me that Grandma didn’t suffer fools.

Donald Trump is one of the most foolish men I’ve ever seen on the national stage, so I’m going to guess that Grandma Vicky would cheer me on marching with a Pussy Hat. Hell, she’d just be excited about the hat if nothing else.

I made a hat for my sister as well.

 

I was sad on Inauguration Day. It was the feeling I had the week after the election — a feeling of isolation and fear. I just didn’t feel safe anymore. It reminded me of the first horrifying week in a Women’s Studies class that the reality of the patriarchy came crashing down on my naive little head. I watched ASU bros argue with the Latina professor daily about the truth of the facts she was presenting about the wage gap, sexual assault statistics, everything. They just didn’t believe her.

I’m a woman, so of course I’ve been scared before. As a woman of color, I’m lucky to live in Albuquerque, with a huge Latino population. At most, I deal with micro-aggression, not full-out attacks. The fear was familiar, but hurt nonetheless.

The March reminded me that I’m not alone. I can walk in a peaceful group of hundreds of thousands and feel safe.  I need to carry that little bit of peace with me as we go forward and take action on the many political battles ahead.