It's a familiar reflex for a mother, but not one I often feel walking, child-free, in the middle of the day in the glittering downtown of an American city. Yet, as the streets deteriorated, my peripheral vision lengthened and my muscles slightly tensed, preparing to spring out of harms way. In this case, one that was being hunted, one that was wished extinct. Instead we got trapped between two linked and locked lines of protestors at the intersection of Sixth and Pine. Suddenly it was just us and many, many people who hated us for being there and didn't want to let us leave.
All mothers learn to expect the unexpected.
That's why we all carry huge bags full of seemingly useless items which, employed creatively, become essential in the crisis of the moment. But I was off duty. The only thing I had in my bag at Sixth and Pine was a briefing book on trade and the environment. I doubted the protesters surrounding me would find the book essential in this particular crisis. I have two little children at home and I am now standing in the middle of a street where literally anything could happen to me.