Only A Witness

I did not march. Instead, I sat in a dark room, looking at video of marchers and march signs and march speakers and march interviews (and checking for profanity, which was virtually non-existent). I was a witness (of sorts) to history, but I was not part of history.

It was an odd feeling. Having spent the last year feeling more informed, more involved, more aware of the world, I suddenly had the opportunity to be right in the middle of it all, and yet, ended up on the outside looking in.

What will I say, when people talk about this day when people stood up and spoke out? How will I feel, when I realize I didn't speak at all, just watched? Will I regret not being an inside part of this moment in history?

It is a funny thing, my working in news. I feel "in the middle," when I'm really just on the outside looking in. I am bombarded with sounds and images, even though I haven't even left my chair. I wonder, might I have marched if I were still working in entertainment? Might I have marched to feel a part of things or because arts people around me were doing it? Or because that, not work, was what weekends were for?

We cannot always change how where we are in life affects the choices we make. We choose how we choose, and then we live with the consequences. This time, I was only a witness--as a walking New Yorker, as a news video editor, as a person avoiding a crowd. Will next time be different? Hard to say. I guess I'll just have to stay tuned...