By Courtney Triplett
“WHERE ARE YOU??” The all-caps text message glared urgently at me from my trusty iPhone 6. I lightly traced the small crack on the left side of the device with my thumb, looking back and forth from the message to the front of my Uber. Leaning forward, I squinted my hardest to see the ETA in the corner of the navigation program on my driver’s phone. I knew it was almost 10 a.m. and that I was running late.
“Excuse me sir, what time does it say we will get to Union Station? My friends are waiting for me there.” I tried to keep the exasperation out of my voice, but it was no use. He picked up on my rush right away.
Stopping the vehicle at a red light as a mass of enthusiastic demonstrators entered the crosswalk, my Uber driver, an older African-American man with kind eyes, turned around to face me. “Should be soon. This traffic is crazy, isn’t it? It’s all for the march, you know.”
Looking up at him from my phone where I had typed “On the way, so sorry,” I broke into a smile.
“Yeah, I know! I’m actually going to the march!” I moved my light blond hair off of my cheek to point excitedly at where I had drawn a female symbol earlier that morning, rather crudely, with the cheap black eyeliner I’d fished out of my suitcase.
The light turned green, and he turned around to continue the drive, but not before giving me a warm smile. He looked at me, eyes glimmering, like he would a child waving a report card in his face with all As and Bs. He looked at me with pride. And I felt it.
We continued to make small talk for the last few minutes of the drive, and before I knew it, we were pulling in front of Union Station. “You have arrived at your destination”, the navigation announced, and after thanking my driver, I leapt out of the vehicle and raced up the concrete to find my friends before the march began.
The march
The air was crisp and hit me in the face the instant I hit the pavement. I paused to scan the massive crowd dotted with colorful, snarky signs and exhaled. I was never going to find them in this.
Finally, after several minutes of searching and one brief phone call full of “where are yous” and “I can’t hear anythings,” I spotted my friends and, with a sigh of relief, ran to join them.
We hugged each other and began to discuss our excitement about the march. The Capitol Building served as an appropriate backdrop, standing unflinchingly tall and proud as we were about to do.
Tamar, the leader of the pack, wore her dark, curly hair loosely. Giggling, she held her sign proudly above her head. “I’m just so happy to be here,” she said. “As a new American, this really means so much to me.”
Tamar is a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. Born in Israel and raised in Maryland, she grew up with a conflicting identity. Where was home for her? What did home mean? The Women’s March for her, like so many others in the United States, was a great way to connect the dots.
Tamar and I, along with her mother and two other girlfriends our age, spent the day marching and laughing and enjoying being a part of something so special. The day was chilly, but we didn’t mind, and in fact, we hardly noticed the weather at all.
After the march subsided around 3:30 p.m., we headed to Tamar’s family home in Maryland. Her mother, after leaving the march early, had prepared an enormous traditional Israeli feast for us to enjoy. It was a magnificent meal, and we all stuffed our faces with olives, hummus and ciabatta, eggplant dip, butternut squash and ginger soup, and a delicious roast in a red wine sauce.
At the end of the meal, Tamar’s mother served hot tea and biscuits. Tamar’s father, Benny, sat at the head of the table and led political discussions.
“I think that what you kids did today was really inspiring,” he said. “That’s what gives me hope for this world, that young people like you show up and really care.”
After chatting for an hour with Tamar’s family, about everything from capitalism to activism to the ingredients in the delicious soup, Tamar and I retired from dinner to get ready to meet our friends downtown.
Finding home
As we were dressing, I noticed a small tattoo between Tamar’s shoulder blades. It depicted a beautiful scene: a little house with trees, drenched in sunlight.
“Tamar, what does your tattoo mean,” I asked hesitantly, not looking to offend or annoy.
Tamar laughed and took a deep breath, preparing herself for the long explanation. “Oh, it’s a picture of home. Because for a time in my life, I didn’t know where that was for me. But more recently, once I became naturalized, I realized that home is where you make it. It’s different for me, being from two completely different places. But home is where you make it, and so I carry my home with me… I carry my home on my back.”
I carry my home on my back. Home is where you make it. What I saw the day of the women’s march in Tamar is something that is often forgotten. People from all different backgrounds came together that day, in the name of activism, in the name of doing something good.
I continued to ask more about the tattoo and about the march.
“After the election, I think my initial response was to run away- to go live somewhere else,” Tamar said. “Many people in this country joke about that, but as a dual citizen, it’s a pretty real option. But then I realized that I became a part of this country because I care about the values it represents- and it has become my home. So I resolved that I needed to stay, because I fully intend to carry my home on my back.”
Edited by Elise Clouser