A NORML Mom Gets on the Bus

Here I am with my "Bus Buddy" Activist Mom Cheryl C.

Everything about my departure to Washington DC has been somewhat delayed, including this post. Instead of being perched behind my laptop at a comfy coffee shop, I am typing from my phone while twisted into the aisle seat of a chartered bus. It strikes me that I don't quite notice just how uncomfortable this is when I am speaking to my new friend and "bus buddy" Cheryl or even when I'm writing. It's amid the dark silence, within which the other women appear to be sleeping, that my legs and mind bend and ache. In other words, it's best to keep active, thinking forward.

As I write this now though, having just departed a gas station with my Revolution Tea in hand, the women around me are waking up loudly. There are grunts, groans, cheers, doubts, apologies, and spilled coffee. It strikes me that our collective voice right now does not exactly feel like the breeding ground for a progressive revolution, and yet, I remind myself, again, that the many disparite threads uniting us is potentially this movement's greatest strength.

One of my personal threads, as always, is my drive to end cannabis prohibition. I am wearing a button on my hat today to show this. I wore the same button on my jacket last week when I traveled to Athens to participate in photographer Kaylinn Gilstrap's march-inspired photo story for The Bitter Southerner. That feature is set to run after we marchers return, and my interview with Kaylinn and her assistant Devin will post then as well. For now, I can give you a head's up: They dig my button and are ready to smell change in the air.

Traveling onward, I ask you think of me today. Yesterday some riots turned violent, and I need you to picture me all wrapped up in protective smoke. ;) Thank you always for spreading the word and helping it grow.

Close-up of my button against my yellow march hat. Yellow is the official color of GA marchers in honor of the monarch butterfly. Hats were hand knitted in GA & funds raised help finance women's bus rides to Washington.