The first few weeks of 2017 are mostly a blank in my memory. It’s as if my mind couldn’t reconcile itself to the fact that something truly incomprehensible had come to pass, that Donald Trump had actually been elected and was going to be sworn in as president of the United States, until it actually happened.
The year didn’t snap into focus for me until Jan. 21, when I stuck a notebook, pens and a digital recorder in my pockets and started walking down to the National Mall with my husband and my sister-in-law. I’d planned on writing a column about the Women’s March, but I didn’t expect it to start so close to home: As soon as we hit the main artery nearest to our home, I began to see people pouring out of houses and apartment buildings, wearing bright pink hats and carrying signs.