Finding beauty and connection in the midst of dissent
How a recent anti-ICE protest revealed some personal truths
Hello friends!
Tomorrow is launch day for“Writers Inspired by the Arts,” our virtual writing community where special guests will share the techniques they use for incorporating other art forms into their writing toolkits.
Access to the community comes with your paid subscription to the Bite-Sized Storytelling Boost. You’ll receive a link meeting hub page in the Welcome document you receive with your paid subscription.
Today’s story is both reflection and technique. I hope you enjoy it.
Shadow has included his contribution at the end.
Are my priorities shifting? Or was this just thermoregulation?
At the January 30, 2026, “Free America Walkout,” aka “ICE Out” action at Foley Square, I was distracted.
With temperatures dipping below 0 degrees (F), it’s possible that my body was working on keeping warm, and I lost focus on my reason for being out there.
As Padma Lakshmi made her way to the base of the “Triumph of the Human Spirit” to speak, I overheard this conversation between two teens.
The one guy said to his friend, “I’m going to shout really loudly!”
They were both staring straight ahead, possibly trying to see who was speaking.
“Me, too,” replied the friend.
“No, man, I mean, really loud. My kind of loud.”
Standing there, facing uptown, amongst thousands, in this coldest of winters in years, I saw pockets of young people. I assumed they were high schoolers and that many were participating in their first act of political resistance.
A new demographic is rising, I thought as I strained to get a glimpse of Padma, but settled for straining to hear what she was saying.
As I scanned the crowd to keep my eyeballs warm, I noticed something happening over by the Supreme Court building. Well, actually, what I saw was on the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building itself.
And the experience suddenly felt slightly holy.
It started with Justice
“ICE OUT!” we repeated over and over.
“Again,” I thought. We’re doing this again.
The crowd seemed to shift slightly east, facing the Supreme Court Building at 60 Centre Street.
It was no accident that this act of resistance to ICE was happening in Foley Square, opposite the New York State Supreme Court Building.
That is where Justice presides.
I mean that both literally and figuratively. There’s a statue of justice there. On the top corner there.
So, when turned maybe 25 degrees to the east, I caught sight of Justice and felt comforted by her presence.
Making that connection between the purpose of this gathering and the setting for it warmed me for a moment. I felt somewhat safe. Maybe even a bit warmer.
And then.
At 4:11 pm, the departing sun bestowed the gift of a silhouette on Louis Lefkowitz. Well, on the building bearing his name, at 80 Centre Street.
It was beautiful, and I allowed myself to stare at it for a long moment.
“No ICE! No KKK! No fascist USA!” we shouted, somewhat in unison.
Not only were we dissenting under the protective gaze of Justice, but then she appeared like a 7-story vision.
Justice was making her presence known.
A few speeches and an hour later
What do you do when you're freezing your ass off at one of the most important protests of the new year?
You look at and try to capture the best photo of people’s signs, knowing everyone’s doing the same, but you want to personally preserve it.
The pod of high schoolers in front of us was a good start. One of the girls had about five different signs and was displaying them in rapid succession.
I caught a few of them.
It was clear from this girl’s signs and most of the signs in the crowd that their designers had intended to directly communicate their messages, without any extra words or flourish.
The same was true of the chanting, often lead, if not somewhat gingerly at first, by the younger members of the crowd.
“ICE OUT!” we repeated on their command, over and over. I thought, “Again. We’re doing this again.”
Perhaps that was why I was more tired and distracted.
At 5:08 pm, just as I was thinking “Sheri Out” due to the cold, I noticed that the moon had risen above the raised signs and the voices of the crowd. She appeared directly between 60 and 80 Centre streets, under the ever-watchful eye of Justice.
It seemed that both the moon and the sun had joined the day’s action.
Having reached the freezing point, we called it a day
Shortly after that beautiful moonrise, my daughter and I decided to split from the rally, which had now begun to march uptown.
The kids seemed game, for the most part, and I’ve read that about 500 of the thousands made it uptown.
Bravo to them and all the people bearing the frigid temperatures to participate in peaceful resistance.
Especially to the people in Minnesota, who endure not only the weather but the overbearing, criminal, and deadly presence of ICE.
Looking for outcomes, finding connection, and seeing beauty in dissent
Were the day’s actions enough to melt ICE?
Not yet.
There is much to be thankful for in the increasing involvement of Generations Z and Alpha. Now it is our job to support them as they become the types of citizens and leaders who fight for humanity.
Likewise, we owe a great debt to those folks called “The Silent Generation,” whose very loud voices have been the anchor of a lot of the resistance work being done in support of Gaza.
They have lived through this before. Many have brought to this battle the lessons learned in civil rights work and have shared the wisdom with others.
I urge you to seek the beauty in resistance, certainly from the perspective of the earnestness of the people and their commitment to justice.
Search for a better understanding of how it is all connected:
Study the relationships between the generations, and passing on the torch of peaceful resistance
Just taking a minute in the center of a crowd, looking around you, and discovering the story you want to tell.
Epilogue
I write about how I’m interpreting the world around me. Sometimes it’s memoir; sometimes, an ongoing narrative about the state of things.
Imagery is part of my writing toolkit
The sun casts a shadow on the wall of a building opposite the New York State Supreme Court. I see the embodiment of Justice against ICE
The moon rises over a group of protesters. I see it joining the battle.
I see Nature, represented by the son and the moon, partnering with man to defeat injustice.
A look behind the scenes at this story
As with the majority of my stories, this one started with a few related images.
I use images in three main ways:
To brainstorm a theme for the week if I don’t have one
To illustrate a theme I have already decided to write about
To build a theme from a striking photo (weird, beautiful, horrific, etc.)
The photo in this story with the “Silhouette of Justice” and the one with the moon stood out to me, as they were striking conceptually. Had I not been freezing, they might have been striking visually as well.
As much as I would love to improve my photography skills, visual perfection is not always the goal for the photos I include in my toolkit.
Oftentimes, the photos are documenting what I see in certain situations. These two represented a key theme that runs throughout most of my work: the interaction between people and Nature.
The other theme in the story, the increasing involvement of Gen X and Gen Alpha, is not an idea that is unique to me. It’s hard to miss and does not require photos to illustrate the theme of transition between generations.
So, the choice is up to me as to whether to include them in the story.
Shadow Feature
“I won’t wear a coat, but I’m freezing. Even inside. Please send help!”
