This is me, ever since Trump took office. Every day feels like an assault, and I am not even remotely in the direct line of fire. I try to look and act like my normal, good-natured self, but underneath I’m filled with barely repressed rage, fear, and despair.

The admonition, “That’s how they want us to feel, so don’t give in to it” ricochets through my paralyzed soul, deepening my bad feelings but not my resolve. As someone who has frequently preached, “Action is the antidote to anxiety,” I’ve tried to follow my own advice–joining political Zooms, making phone calls to Wisconsin, opening (and mostly closing) my 5 Calls app, donating money. They all help for a nanosecond before the surreal but all-too-real nightmare we’re living in overwhelms me again.

“We should be in the streets, why am I not in the streets?” runs on continuous loop through my head.

This past weekend we were. Millions of us, in more than 1,300 events in all 50 states, from sapphire-blue big cities to ruby-red small towns.

I pulled out my homemade sign to add a new layer to the many I’ve crafted with hope and outrage since Trump first took office. “Obamacare, NOT ‘We Don’t Care,” reads the first, followed by the 2017 Women’s March offering: “YES WE CAN PROTECT AND PREVAIL.” Here is the last one I made before feeling the urgent need to march again (sigh):

Then I got sick, and didn’t have time to make a new one. But I felt better enough to go to our local rally at San Rafael’s Civic Center. The gridlock to even approach the area foretold the much-higher-than-expected turnout of 5,000 people. I couldn’t see or hear a single speaker, but for me it was the very fact of showing up, being together that lifted my mood for more than a nanosecond.

And the signs, the glorious signs!

I’ll leave you with the greater eloquence of the writer Rebecca Solnit’s take on the day, which includes this beautiful image–Hands Off rallies throughout the United States:

Let’s keep it up and defeat these thugs.