2003-03-24 - 5:54 p.m.

despite a massive amount of domestic strife this week, i still pulled my ass out of bed on saturday in time to join a massive antiwar protest on the streets of new york.

i emerged from the union square subway station near the virgin megastore. i simply walked into a tremendous crowd of people walking slowly down broadway. there was some singing and chanting, some percussion and dancing, but everyone was pretty low-key and friendly. most people were carying handmade signs, and most of them were funny rather than strident.

it didn't hurt that the weather was made to order. the previous weekend had been dreary and cold, but springtime bitchslapped the city on saturday and it was impossible not to smile. warm gentle sunshine cradled everyone and there was hardly even a breeze.

broadway was closed to traffic from 42nd st to waverly place in soho. wooden barricades lined the route, but police were not harassing anyone and folks moved from marching to standing along the sidewalks pretty freely. entrepreneurs were hawking t-shirts and buttons poking fun at the american administration. at about west 10th st, a woman came out onto her fire escape and blew on a shofar, a conch shell horn. a floor below her, little girls showered confetti into the crowd.

the march fed into washington square park and police were making announcements asking people to disperse and go home. noone seemed to listen. protestors slowly and politely filled the plaza at washington square and milled around trading leaflets, reading one another's signs, smiling at each other. someone had left big piles of sidewalk chalk all around the fountain and within 90 minutes the whole plaza was filled with graffiti denouncing the war and its architects. musicians showed up and people started dancing. troupes began impromptu performances.

my favorite signs:

• but george, what if they kill a fetus?

• dick cheney will have a job after the war, will you?

• my next president will be elected

• my bush would make a better president

• 1,000 cruise missiles and 0 civilian casualties? what are the odds?

• i drink bordeaux and i vote

i couldn't help but notice that it was the second time in two years i had the opportunity to walk down a broadway closed to traffic. the first time was on september 14, 2001, when manhattan below 14th street was still closed to all but the residents. c, p, f, and i decided that the disaster was too remote and we were tired of watching it on TV. a part of me wanted to see what was really going on. the other part of me was terrified. we easily slipped past the police barricades at 14th and wandered the deserted streets. a few desperate vendors were open, but most were closed. soot and ash were still falling and many people were wearing dust masks. f and i would be forced to don dust masks the following day when the wind shifted and blew morbid debris into our north brooklyn neighborhood. i took a few pictures that day on broadway and i am still struck by the feeling of disconnection in them: lines of dumptrucks on an otherwise deserted houston st, masked cops and exhausted national guardsmen, sparse crowds sifting through empty neighborhoods, everyone brittle with panic.

this saturday was different. i had been huddled in my house listening to the radio since the bombing of baghdad begun on wednesday night. most people i know are scared and angry and confused about the war. so getting out of the house and getting some sun felt great. being around a couple hundred thousand other people who also oppose the war also felt great. yelling at the president felt great. i'd been feeling so helpless, so powerless, and being in a big crowd made me feel less small.