Shabbat Shalom from the lake!
There is a spoken word song that is mostly life advice on my playlist entitled, “Be Kind to Yourself.” It tells me that “out of silence comes the greatest creativity, not when we are rushing and panicking.” With this being the second week in a row that I failed to post my research update on the blog, I am embracing this advice– just because I have been silent here does not mean that progress has not been made.
Actually, I have about four drafts attempting to tell the same story of Wyoming’s suffrage but all with a different narrative framework. Even while writing, my researching never ceased. Out of the silence, I followed footnotes and searched suffrage magazines to find the “smoking gun” of evidence that will disrupt the mainstream story of Wyoming’s suffrage. I had enough evidence to challenge it and perhaps convince a few, but this latest find makes my challenge undisputable.
The lake was still but I was running through the house jumping up and down, “Yes!” I immediately called my dad and read my family the smoking part of the speech I just found. On the other end of the line, they erupted into cheers. I am so grateful to have people in my life who are just as excited about me digging through old newspapers, letters, magazines, etc., as I am.
Today, I will go to the nursing home and try my best to communicate my latest success to my grandpa via whiteboard.
On Monday, I will share the story of Wyoming Suffrage with the Fort Caspar Chapter of D.A.R. and I am hoping to find a room full of socially distanced women just as excited to discover women restored to the Wyoming Suffrage story.
While the internet speed here at the lake has certainly slowed down my multi-tab researching, I still find myself grateful for following my parents’ advice to shake off my writer’s block at the lake. Yesterday, I rolled up my jeans and walked in the bay a while. I lazily watered the tall grasses on the corner flower bed while sitting on the well. I stood in the sunshine and listened to the neighbors at work. The lake was placid and I felt a stillness.
