Snapshot: A Walk in Our Nation’s Capital

I do government-adjacent work, so Friday afternoon I went out the front door to walk off my feelings and decided to turn right.

As I neared the U.S. Capitol building, I started seeing people with going-home-from-a-protest energy (small groups, cheerful, heading away from major government buildings) and gangs of Architect of the Capitol staff cleaning up trash from the wide sidewalks.

As I walked down one of those sidewalks, another woman, also alone, coming the other way, started to trend toward me in a way that people do when they’re not going to follow social conventions about strangers. She looked cold and tired. I put my head down and studiously ignored. “Are you pro-life?” she called. As I passed: “Oh, you don’t like women having control over their own bodies? How pathetic!”

Ah, right. It was that day in January, every year, when a bunch of people show up to be mad about Roe v. Wade. They won, but I guess they’re still showing up. And I guess that lady is still showing up to yell at them about it.

I do like having control over my own body, while it lasts, and I walked that body on toward the sunset and then back on home.

Photo: Helen Fields, obviously