Did you watch the kids’ march on Washington Saturday? The March for Our Lives? Did you hear their words? If not, take a few minutes now.

They play and re-play in my head.

By design no one over 18 spoke to the huge crowd. One was 11, another was 9. Most were high schoolers. One was so nervous she actually vomited at the podium, recovered and continued her speech. Another stopped in the middle and stood silently, tears running down her cheeks, for the six minutes and 20 seconds it took for the massacre at her high school that killed 17 young people and a coach.

Most remarkable, though, was the collaboration between the Marjorie Stoneham Douglas High School kids from their affluent community and the inner city kids who traveled from Chicago and South Central L.A. In the weeks since the Florida shooting students from these so different communities have visited each other’s schools and forged a bond over the issue that bonds them: gun violence.

Gun violence that was a one-time thing at the Parkland, Florida school was so normal for the city kids that one boy even displayed the app on his phone that tracks how many had been killed that day in his world.

There was a sense that race and ethnicity were erased for these young people, much as gender identity/sexual orientation has been for this generation. Have you noticed?

It felt as though one of the terrible rifts in our society was being healed before our eyes. For those hours it seemed that common sense was taking charge. 

Later that day several hundred people gathered at the post office in Belfast for a march through town carrying signs that read “ENOUGH!” and “NEVER AGAIN” and “BAN ASSAULT RIFLES” and “PROTECT KIDS NOT GUNS”. It was a predictably older crowd, and more than one could be heard saying to a companion, “I haven’t done this since Vietnam.”

These are the folks who’ve been writing Susan Collins, Angus King, and Bruce Poliquin all along, begging them to support gun control, a ban on assault rifles, background checks. I have friends who send off an email every day. Three-quarters of the population wants some or all of these measures, but I have a feeling the passion of the March for Our Lives kids may be what finally gets through to the politicians.

Kids have been on my mind.

This past week-end “Wonderland: The Musical Misadventures of a Girl Named Alice” was presented at Lincolnville Central School. Walsh Common was packed with parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends of the cast. And because LCS is a K-8 school students in grades 4-8 put on the production.

It had me from the very beginning when a small figure in a very fuzzy and cute bunny costume, ears flopping to the side, small ukulele in hand came out and sang a song about Alice and the looking glass.  

Since when does a fifth grader have the confidence to do that? She was just the start as one after another of the characters from Wonderland came to life – Alice herself, the Red and White Queens, the Kings, the Mad Hatter, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, Humpty Dumpty. There was a Unicorn and a Lion, three little talking flowers, the Dixie Chickens, and the cameo appearance of four LCS alums, visiting from CHRHS. The lines they delivered were funny, but each brought their own unique touch or inflection to their character. I haven’t laughed so much in ages.

Singing solos, acting appropriately goofy, unself-consciously dancing around on a stage, all in front of a couple of hundred people – this isn’t even remotely the way I remember my own childhood, yet here were a couple of dozen pre-teens/teens doing exactly that. I was 30 years old before I had that kind of self-confidence.

Invisible to the audience – both in Washington and Walsh Common – were the teachers who are guiding and mentoring these students. Emily Mathieu, the LCS music teacher who directed the play, has once again shown her dedication to bringing out the best in our kids. Year after year I’m grateful for the work Emily, and all our teachers, do for our children. LCS is a school our community can be proud of.

 One MSD highschooler startled the crowd Saturday when he began his speech: “We need to arm our teachers…” long pause “with pencils and paper.” The crowd responded with cheers of relief, relief that they wouldn’t have to listen to the deeply flawed “solution” to school shootings, that arming teachers would somehow make them safer.

I lived with a teacher for nearly 50 years; I was, for a few years, a teacher myself. One son is a teacher. Among my friends are many teachers, and spouses of teachers. A teacher carrying a loaded gun into a classroom of children is unthinkable. As so many have articulated over these past few months, teachers never trained to be police. It’s not what they’re good at.

Just as Emily Mathieu works so hard at turning her elementary and middle school music students into a team able to put on a complicated and entertaining play, there must be teachers behind the program so many of us watched through tears on Saturday. The speeches were punchy and to a point, each one hitting a slightly different aspect of how gun violence affected them. Somebody had taught them to let their emotion show, to speak to the massed crowds as if to their intimate friends. Somebody taught them to be their authentic selves.

Somehow I’m equating our school age kids in a middle school play with those brave, passionate, and oh so confident speakers in Washington on Saturday. Self-possession, confidence in themselves in spite of the very real stage fright many admitted to in interviews the next day (but from the other side of seventy, I have to say that they fooled me), I think it’s a fair comparison.

They were as far from the zoned-out, phone-obsessed generation we might imagine them to be as possible. They were ardent, engaged, hitting the issues squarely without the fudging we’ve come to hear from politicians on both sides.

The Tenebrae Service, 6 p.m. on Maundy Thursday, March 29 at United Christian Church is “an ancient Christian Good Friday service that makes use of gradually diminishing light through the extinguishing of candles to symbolize the events of the week from the triumphant Palm Sunday entry through Jesus' burial.” All are welcome at what is described as an emotional experience of Holy Week.

The church at 18 Searsmont Road will be open Good Friday, March 30 from noon to 6 p.m. for anyone who wants to come into the sanctuary for prayer or meditation.

Easter Sunday worship will be at 9:30 a.m.

Knitting/Needlework on Tuesday! All are encouraged and welcome to join the amazing library volunteers Dotty and Kathleen for a lively and social evening of crochet, knitting and/or other needlework.  This is a consistently fun, helpful and multi-talented group.  Bring your favorite project Tuesday from 4 until 6.

The Writing Group Friday at 9 a.m..  A bonus gathering this Friday for the writers, taking advantage of the calendar’s extra Friday this month.  This group regularly meets with Sheila at the library on the second and fourth Fridays to share their writings and ideas. Newcomers are welcome.

The library is open Tuesday 4 until 7 p.m., Wednesday 2 until 7 p.m.,and open Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. until noon.  Please drop in!