The Activist House

On Tuesday, I schlep bags of CodePINK supplies up to Gael’s house. Gael is one of the founding mothers of the CodePINK movement for peace and women’s rights, and has a big, boisterous house nestled in a suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of DC (“E” in the three-syllable street area, to be exact). From the outside, the house, with its soft orange color and crimson columned wide porch holding an old couch and swing, looks calm and welcoming. This soft façade, however, quickly gives in, through the doorway, to a bustling speedway of CodePINK activity. For the week of J20, Gael’s house has become our activist lair, housing many of the women who have traveled from faraway places to make it to the counter-inaugural, and serving as the meeting point for the construction of our plans. The front entryway is piled high with various pink garments—overcoats, wool hats, assorted gloves, and wet boots. The dining room is turned into a workshop where we cut, hem, and mark up “Resist!” pink satin sashes for the women’s march, and paint large banners for the parade route. The living room becomes Claire and Dana’s internet-equipped office, and the kitchen is always buzzing with two or more women engaged in passionate political discourse over a cup of over-steeped coffee. Someone is on a cell phone talking with the press in an upstairs bedroom, someone else is putting elastic strips on pink statue of liberty crowns, and someone is trying to make lunch… and in the middle of it all, Gael’s two dogs , who have become excited at all the unusual hub-bub of activity swarming through their house, make off with the baguette!

The whole scene is far more than comical, though: it is astounding. I am overwhelmed with joy to be a part of this group of dedicated women who are so creatively and passionately working to say no to the Bush agenda, and the inauguration process. I am also exceedingly grateful to Gael and Lori for opening their home to us, especially in their absence. I’m immediately incorporated into the action, making sashes and talking through the agenda for the busy days to come. And then it is decided that I will drive Nancy and I downtown to get more supplies. My first stickshift adventure, happily, goes smoothly and without unnecessary calamity.

By nighttime, Gael’s dining room is full of CodePINK women making various banners and signs. In the middle of it all enters a Scandinavian reporter, who interviews each of us about our work and our purpose protesting. Later that night, I return to Scott’s house, and he takes me on a rather blindfolded journey to the capital, where we see Lincoln’s monument emerge in glowing yellow light, and then visit the FDR memorial. This memorial is a labyrinthine structure of Jerusalem-style stone, interrupted occasionally with fountains which have frozen in the bitter winter temperatures. These icy green structures, the paused, crystal water shimmering in the light, seem to emerge out of some distant mountain landscape, and their presence here in the middle of the Mall is somewhat of a comfort. For a moment, I am not caught up in the memorials of wars and fallen leaders and soldiers, and I return to the world of Beauty. Eleanor Roosevelt’s statue emerges next to one of these luminous fountain ice sculptures, and I think about how she might be one of the only female statues on the Mall… what a woman!

With her presence on my mind, I return for one more night of good sleep, before the counter-inaugural really begins.