No Kings, October 18

We attended a No Kings rally in Ellsworth, Maine, on Saturday. The weather was beautiful. I started out with a coat on, but I shed it as the sun warmed my shoulders and back. The kickoff was a song performed by – YES, the Paul of Peter, Paul, and Mary, Noel Paul Stookey. He sang “If I had a hammer” – an absolutely perfect protest song. The crowd was singing along. It was an emotional experience. He’s devoted a lifetime to activism and protest, and nearing the end of his life, he has to come out for this. Later we heard from someone in the know that he wasn’t on the bill originally, but showed up at the last minute, claiming “I thought I should be there.”

And we had two Indigenous speakers. Two out of four! For me, there was a rightness to this. And also extreme gratitude that Natives were willing to speak to the crowd in understanding and friendliness when they have endured so much from this so-called United States. I feel ashamed that I didn’t capture their names, although I did catch their tribes. I’m working on finding out their names, and if I do, I’ll amend this post.

This young Two Spirit speaker was also brave enough to dance directly in front of the one counter protestor that was buzzing around like a noxious pest. It was quite a moment – the dancer holding a decorative blanket and dancing in front of the MAGA-fied attention seeker, who was madly waving a large flag featuring he who shall not be named. I felt like an exorcism was being performed. The attention seeker did continue to bother the proceedings, but peace prevailed. More people stood up to block his hate-filled performance wherever he went.

After the speakers, we marched around the block in a joyous throng. There was a lot of good feeling, a lot of costumes, a lot of dogs, and chatting with friends and neighbors. Everyone was taking full advantage of our right to gather peacefully. It’s hard to imagine that this right may be taken away – but I can’t help but imagine it.

We went home, ate a late lunch, and worked on cleaning up the garden. All the tomato vines were removed from both tomato rows and shredded to add to the compost. I raked the mulch off the row near the fence to expose all the grass that had crept in there. Then we were able to dig out the invasive grass before replacing the mulch. A good effort. All of the rows need this treatment. I weed like this once or twice a year, so it’s not too onerous. While I was working, I took a moment to admire the low sun shining on some remaining green plants: leeks, borage, daikon radish, broccoli rabe. The bees are still on the borage. The irrigation hoses are pulled out of the rows into messy piles, but more cleanup will be done another day.

It was a good day of solidarity.