The Big Day (after a Big Week)

Yesterday at the Michaels on Ridgely, poster boards and markers were in short supply. The Friday sign wave on York Road was the largest in weeks, with the most police presence ever. Three Ford Explorers and a tow truck in an empty parking lot. Rumors flew about whether or not BCPD would show up at overpasses in riot gear. There are still new participants who keep showing up. New faces. Even a Lutheran Priest this time in a collar. And the "regulars."

This morning Mobilize updates trickle in with some events in new places reaching over a 100 registrations in less than 48 hours. Organizers have spent hours this week getting ready providing countless sessions on what to bring (or not) and how to de-escalate and assess risk.

Across the country, newly formed (or recently re-invigorated) groups with veterans activists from the 1960s to the newly-initiated are going through inevitable messy process of humans working together: storming, forming, norming--reaching for performing. Communication is hard. Discord? Signal? Email? Slack? Facebook? Old Fashioned phone trees? How do we coordinate and communicate with so much going on and with so many channels? There are too many options. Too many calendars. Too many QR-codes of events to attend.

This, while social media is saturated with images of missiles streaking across the night sky in Iran and Israel.

Yet, today is the day where we get out there on the sidewalks, in the parks, in the corporate town centers, and yes, even on the overpasses with our banners and signs and our bodies.

So let's get off the couch. Let's put our phones down. Let's get offline and out there and meet others across the political spectrum and show up.