Not That Old Yarn Again

By Abigail Hickman

Well, I’m behind the ball (of yarn) again. I ordered my pink yarn about two weeks after the

Washington March but apparently I am not alone in my tardiness . My particular pink yarn,

rouge, has been on back-order for two weeks, something I am interpreting as a good sign of

ongoing badass activism. Yes, I know that women are now shifting their head gear protest to the American flag hijab but I’ve already ordered that yarn and so I’m going to start there.

I woke up that first Saturday under the Trump Rain feeling the collective wet and disorientating hangover many of us felt after the inauguration the night before. I was nervous to read the internet headlines. This condition, something I call the Trump Twitch, would worsen as the weeks unraveled. That first Saturday, I felt I couldn’t face the bloat gloat of the Trump Team but I also knew I couldn’t avoid it. I am an educated citizen and I felt it was both my right and my duty to read the headlines and get my cursory view of the state of the State. I was a quite surprised to see pictures of women in the pink hats weaving into the previous day’s white spaces of the Washington Mall, and then on the main streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and even that lonesome, cold looking boat out in the Antarctic. What did it all

mean?

It meant that thinking people chose to stand up and say that word traditionally forbidden to women: “No!” And they even chose to say it in the subfreezing temperatures in the Antarctic. All the way down there, and all the way over in Australia, and if NASA hadn’t been defunded

I’ll bet astronauts would have held up signs from Mars saying “Red and Yellow, Black and White, all are precious in Earth’s starlight.” Or something like that.

It meant that I wasn’t alone in my confusion and fear. Millions of women felt the same way and

knit themselves together into a historic protest of unity and hope. I’ll bet millions more raised

their martini glasses, or hammers or whatever to salute those who represented us in the streets

even when we weren’t there. I know that I raised both.

That’s the secret way of women. We are a collaborative, crafty bunch and for every one woman

who marched that Saturday, there were thousands more of us, managing conference calls,

waiting tables, nursing babies, practicing in the church choirs swelling with pride and knowing

with conviction that we belonged and were welcome in any way that we could figuratively show

up. I went from feeling that foggy, gut pinching wrench of dread and terror to triumph and solidarity.

I was proud of all the sisters and moms and daughters who united and did something in the face

of uncertainty under the Big Bite of White Right. To steal a current if tepid political word: I was

heartened.

I am not a scholar of history or politics. I get confused all the time. Is Steve Bannon an OompahLoompah to Trump’s Slugworth or is it the other way around? Is the White House

manufacturing toxic candy bars and labelling them as “alternative?” These factors and a

gazillion others caused me to subjugate my belief in my own political acumen. But I know how to crochet (thanks grandma) and I sure as hell know how to order merchandise from Amazon (thanks girlfriends). So I started with that one action: I put the yarn in my shopping cart and checked-out. Only, for me, that action was a check-in. I was reporting for duty. When it finally gets here, and I hope it takes a while because the yarn factories are dying pink wool on overtime, I’m going to crochet my pussy hat. With each stitch I will remind myself that I am a pussycat with grrrl powers.

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I don’t know what to do next but I feel confident it will come to me. In the meantime I have come to know the following truths to be self-evident:

1. We are going to be okay. A quick glance at Susie Anthony’s long march tells us that we’ve got this. Those gals were beaten, arrested, ostracized, scolded and judged. But every time they were pushed down, they would help each other back up, brush off those

long, heavy skirts and start marching again.

2. We don’t know what lies ahead but that’s okay too. Will the workplace become filled intolerable with ass-grabbing, ogling, sexist joke telling white men in power again? Will we ever make a comparable wage to a male’s? Will our son’s grow up in a climate of anti-feminism? We don’t have to know where we are going yet because sometimes it is enough to know where we have been (see #1).

3. This is a long game and we have historically shown our supergirl powers of patience, prudence and perseverance. We’ve got this.

4. Trump is not the problem. We make a profound mistake when we focus on his ignorance or respond to the shrike tweet of his latest equal rights impalement as if it held true import. Trump is not the problem.

5. The real problem is the millions of people who have elected him to trumpet their own views of white eminence. You can find the problem at the bottom of a Trump Tweet. Look at the thousands who “heart” or “retweet.” Remember, 61 million people, many of them women, exhaled the stale air of entitlement and old establishment on election night. They are worthy of our fear. This is where the resistance lens must focus.

6. There is a Trump in everyone’s circle. Stay aware, show pity against intolerance on the small, domestic levels. This is where true change occurs, in the intimacy of our homes, in our kitchens, in the hallways at work and in our grocery stores.

7. Don’t laugh when the butt of the joke is a stereotype (even against white men). Don’t buy products from companies who don’t pay fair wages or promote women or people of color into upper leadership positions.

8. Invite someone who doesn’t look like you to coffee. Find ways to intersect “them” in small, quiet ways. Allow yourself to be intersected. Recognize that you are someone else’s “them.”

9. Watch a good movie and eat lots of ice cream. These are scary times and fear can sometimes harden hearts. Remember to laugh with people you love and to love more people.

10. When you feel scared or alone, crochet a pink hat.