2010-11-01 - 3:25 p.m.

Went to the ironic rally in DC on Saturday and everything I did there had to do with crowds of people. Mom met me on Friday afternoon, at my place, and after I finished up with some work we fought heavy I-95 traffic to get to the end of the green line. It was her first time on a subway, of any kind. She was very interested in the parking, the ticket-buying, the cars themselves. We shared a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich as we waited. We got on and found seats. After a few stops, she asked, "So it goes underground?"

The best part about riding subways is the difference between where you started and where you wound up. We started in suburban nowhere and ended up in an urban somewhere. "So here's DC!" Mom said, when the escalator dumped us out next to the big basketball arena. Underground was warm but the actual, outside air stung a little. We walked west, weaving in and out of bunches of people. A friend recommended a pizza place. He'd described it as "reasonable." By this, I knew he meant that the prices were good. There was a wait. I tried to order us two beers but the bartender ignored me. We ate and it was good and we laughed and, after the second beer, got to the serious talk. Then we walked down to the Mall and there were no crowds. We passed by the White House and our only company were some German girls and some Mexican families. We touched the Washington Monument, felt its stones and its mortar, looked straight up at its huge white massiveness.

But then, the next morning, the crowds really happened. The four of us got up early, ate pancakes at the musuem about spy culture, and joined the rivers of people pouring in off the numbered north-south streets. We found a spot. First, we had room to dance, if we'd wanted to. Then my brother lay down his jacket, to reserve space. Then his jacket got stood upon. Then there wasn't enough space to sit, if I'd wanted to. I felt a stranger's breath on my neck. I couldn't turn and look at her, but I could tell from her laugh that she was 18 or 20, maybe 22. I'd look to my right and there was my mom and my brother and then to my left was a hundred thousand heads, a thousand homemade signs, and beyond all of that, the National Art Gallery looming huge, gray, and muscular.

And when it was over, as the closing band played its goodbye music, we shuffled north, a great mass of bodies and heads and homemade signs moving as one. There were no full strides, only stuttering ones. I stepped on feet and my feet were stepped upon and there were no problems. We moved, slowly, my brother leading the way, me at the back of our little line of four. And all around us were lines of two or four or six, and they were moving with us, everyone keeping an eye on the person in front, hearing a hundred conversations at once, every now and then looking up at some guy with a fancy camera who'd somehow climbed a stop-light.

We moved very slowly, but it was okay. Sometimes we moved not at all, but it was okay. We were in good hands, and we were okay.

previous - next