It is unusual for me to struggle to write these blogs. Typically, I am stricken with an idea and the words just flow. Not always is my writing flawless but usually the message is singular and hopefully clear. But this morning, I am not sure how to get my jumbled thoughts into writing. How do I tell you about the cornucopia of emotions brought on by reading two books and a movie?
Now hold on. Put that eye roll back. Hear me out.
I don’t really get to read much. It’s not that I don’t like to, it’s just that, up until recently, I really didn’t have a place to go to read. Unfortunately, as I age, I find it harder and harder to concentrate on the page while the TV is on. Because we live in a tin can on the high-line, when the TV is on, it is on in every room. Recently, I did get a lounge chair to put in the mud room so that I have a place to read while Curtis is enjoying watching a rodeo, a football game, and one of those reality shows about hunter/survivalists in Alaska (all at the same time mind you).
A couple of days ago, Curtis went to the Hereford tour and I suddenly have a quiet tin can. The first night, I watched Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life story, “On the Basis of Sex.” Before I watched this, I had asked the local library if they were going to get it in and the answer was a quick “probably not” based on the title. I do think I am going to take up the cause, however, as this has a very powerful message about how hard-fought our rights have been. So much we take for granted. I still see smoky remnants of discrimination against women stuck in the grooves of social habits – A man’s name listed first on marriage licenses, on loan documents, etc., and it, quite honestly raises my hackles. That topic is its own blog. As any ranch woman knows, ranch work doesn’t discriminate, it just needs done. The cows don’t care if you are male or female and the fence wouldn’t know the difference.
Last weekend, I was consumed by the book, “Blind Your Ponies,” by Stanley Gordon West; a thick book that I devoured in just two nights, rushing through my chores to get back to its pages. Adversity, doubt, history – a very potent combination AND based on class C school basketball in Montana! I knew the towns they talked about and it was based on true events. If you want a good, inspirational, feel-good story, this is a must read.
I celebrated Friday the 13th with the full moon and the last book, “Meadowlark,” by Dawn Wink. Thank goodness I had a box of Kleenex in the kitchen. In the last two years, as I have tried to adapt to the harsh environment of Northeastern Montana, I have often wondered how the people who homesteaded this land survived. When temperatures dip to -50 below and the wind screams, when the snow piles up and there is nowhere to take cover, when the heat of the summer soars over 100 degrees and there is no rain in sight, when the wind howls across the prairie and haunts your very soul and yet these people made it through in tar paper shacks. These women were the original minimalist survivalists who fought all of that AND discrimination.
The mundane, dreary, repetitive tasks of life can sometimes dull your spirit. Whitewash your dreams until they appear pale and unimportant. Somehow, I feel my heart has been risen to the top from a good stirring of my emotions by reading these books and watching a movie. Maybe that is what I wanted to share with you – a glimmer of hope that what we are doing here does have a purpose, a meaning, and we all have some role to play in something bigger. Make sure the footprint you leave behind is a path to make it better for the next and not a destructive stomp through the flower bed.
